Of her debut poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, Robert Pinsky writes, “This poet’s ardent, winning ebullience echoes that of God…” and Cate Marvin says her work “would have no doubt pleased Neruda’s taste for the alchemic impurity of poetry.” Melissa Studdard is the author of the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the young adult novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her work has appeared or been featured in The Guardian, The New York Times, Poetry, Harvard Review, New Ohio Review, Psychology Today, Poets & Writers, and elsewhere, and has received awards such as The Forward National Literature Award, the International Book Award, and the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award. She is currently a poet-in-residence at The Hermitage Artist Retreat, where she is working on a poetry manuscript narrated mostly from the perspective the mythological character Philomela's severed tongue. To learn more, visit www.melissastuddard.com [2].