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Ingrid Wendt was born and raised in Aurora, Illinois, of German-speaking parents—a Chilean-born father and a Michigan-born mother—she earned an MFA in Writing from the University of Oregon, where she served as Managing Editor of Northwest Review. Her first book of poems, Moving the House, was selected by William Stafford for BOA Editions’ New Poets of America Series. Her next three books won The Oregon Book Award, the Yellowglen Award, and the Editions Prize. Her most recent book, Evensong, offers many small epiphanies arising from everyday life: turning points in relationships, insights into our troubled world, and coming to terms with loss. Founder of the Lane Literary Guild, a community-based writing organization, some honors include a “Distinguished Achievement Award” from the president of Cornell College, her undergraduate alma mater, three Fulbright Professorships to Germany, the D.H. Lawrence Award, the Carolyn Kizer Award, an Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship and a Fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts. She has co-edited two anthologies: In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts and From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry. Her teaching guide, Starting with Little Things, is in its 6th printing.

She plans to use her days at Playa to put together a “new and selected” book of poems, which she trusts will include poems inspired by the desert landscape, to bring a balance to poems that address current socio-political crises, juxtaposed with the shenanigans of birds and fish and other wild things of the Willamette Valley and of more tropical landscapes.