James McKean writes poetry and nonfiction. He’s published three books of poems—Headlong, Tree of Heaven, and We Are the Bus—and two books of essays: Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports and Bound. His work has appeared in magazines and collections such as The Atlantic, Poetry, The Iowa Review, Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Best American Sports Writing 2003, and Basketball: Great Writing About America’s Game. His awards include the 1987 Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writer Award in Poetry, the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize, the 2011 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize from Texas Review Press, and a Pushcart Prize. McKean lives in Edmonds, WA, and teaches for the Queens University MFA Creative Writing Program, the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop, and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.