Johanna Skibsrud is a poet, novelist and Assistant Professor of English literature at the University of Arizona. Her latest book, a collection of poetry -- The Description of the World -- was published by Wolsak and Wynn Press in fall 2016. She is also the author of two novels -- including the 2010 Giller Prize Winning novel, The Sentimentalists -- a collection of short stories, two previous books of poetry, and a children's book.  The New York Times Book Review describes her most recent novel, Quartet for the End of Time (Norton 2014) as a haunting exploration of “the complexity of human relationships and the myriad ways in which identity can be malleable.” “[It] is exhilarating,” writes the Washington Post, “to join [a writer] working at these bracing heights.” Skibsrud's poems and stories have appeared, among other places, in Zoetrope, Ecotone, and Glimmertrain Magazines, and she currently at work on a critical monograph on the ethics of poetic discourse through the poetry of Wallace Stevens.