Gary McDowell was born and raised in suburban Chicago. He earned a BA in English from Northern Illinois University, an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University, and a PhD in contemporary American poetics and creative writing from Western Michigan University. He lives just outside Nashville with his family and is an associate professor of English at Belmont University. Gary has published several books, including Aflame (White Pine Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 White Pine Press Poetry Prize; Caesura: Essays (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2017); Mysteries in a World That Thinks There Are None (Burnside Review Press, 2016), winner of the 2015 Burnside Review Poetry Prize; Weeping at a Stranger's Funeral (Dream Horse Press, 2014); and American Amen (Dream Horse Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Orphic Prize for Poetry. He is also the co-editor, with F. Daniel Rzicznek, of the SPD best-selling anthology The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry (Rose Metal Press, 2009). His poems and essays have appeared in journals such as American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Nation, New England Review, The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, and dozens of others.