Ruth Bardon grew up in Highland Park, New Jersey, and lived in a number of midwestern cities before firmly settling in Durham, North Carolina. She received an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1982 and a PhD in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Boulevard, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Salamander, and other journals. She is the author of two chapbooks: Demon Barber (Main Street Rag, 2020) and What You Wish For (Finishing Line Press, 2023). She is also the author of Selected Short Stories of William Dean Howells (Ohio University Press, 1997).