Formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa, Carmen Gimenez Smith is now an assistant professor of creative writing at New Mexico State University, the publisher of Noemi Press, and the editor-in-chief of PUERTO DEL SOL. Her work has most recently appeared in MANDORLA, COLORADO REVIEW and PLOUGHSHARES and is forthcoming in jubilat and DENVER QUARTERLY. She is the author of ODALISQUE IN PIECES (University of Arizona Press, 2009) and BRING DOWN THE LITTLE BIRDS (University of Arizona, 2010). She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her husband and their two children.