Born and raised in Chatham, Virginia, Claudia Emerson studied writing at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. In 2008 she was appointed poet laureate of Virginia, a two-year role. Emerson has been poetry editor for the Greensboro Review and a contributing editor for Shenandoah. She has taught at Washington and Lee University, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, and the University of Mary Washington. Emerson’s poetry, steeped in the Southern Narrative tradition, bears the influences of Ellen Bryant Voigt, Betty Adcock, and William Faulkner.