ARIANNE ZWARTJES grew up in mid-coast Maine. She is a wilderness EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and teaches for the Wilderness Medicine Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School, as well as in the writing program at the University of Arizona. She is the author of a chapbook, (Stitched) A Surface Opens (New Michigan Press/Diagram, 2008), and her writing has appeared in Caketrain, The Pinch, Cue, Diagram, Red Wheelbarrow, Front Porch, and Blue Fifth Review, among others. She lives in Tucson and is currently completing a collection of lyric essays.