Chaun Ballard is a Ph.D. student in English with a specialization is creative writing, with a focus on poetry. He is an affiliate editor for Alaska Quarterly Review, an assistant poetry editor for Terrain.org, an assistant poetry editor for Prairie Schooner, a graduate teaching assistant, and a graduate research assistant here at UNL. Prior to his arrival to UNL, he was a faculty member in the Department of Writing and the Department of Creative Writing & Literary Arts at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Chaun’s chapbook, Flight, was the winner of the 2018 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize and is published by Tupelo Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Northwest, The New York Times, and other literary magazines. Chaun is the recipient of a 2019 Alaska Literary Award. His poems have received nominations for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize.