Laurie Cedilnik is a writer living in Houston by way of Queens. She has an MFA from The University of Houston, where she was an Inprint C. Glen Cambor Fellow and Editor of Gulf Coast.  Her stories can be found in Colorado Review, Epoch, West Branch, The Antioch Review, Pleiades, Cimarron Review, The Rumpus, Brevity, Hobart, and Fifth Wednesday, and her story collection Queens’ Finest was one of two finalists for the Flannery O’Connor Prize. Laurie’s writing has received awards including a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, an Individual Artist grant from the Houston Arts Alliance, a Bobet Fellowship, and Gwen Frostic Prizes in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Laurie is a graduate of Wellesley College and Hunter College High School, and has taught creative writing at Loyola University (New Orleans), Grand Valley State, and Western Michigan University, where she earned a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing.