Bonnie Larson Staiger, a North Dakota Associate Poet Laureate, is the recipient of the ‘Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Award’ from North Dakota State University Press (2018), the Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite for her debut collection, Destiny Manifested. Her second book In Plains Sight (NDSU Press 2021) was nominated for the PEN America Literary Award, received the Midwest Book Awards - Silver Medal, and received the WILLA Literary Award in Poetry - Finalist by Women Writing the West.  Her award-winning poems have been included in numerous anthologies, literary journals, and publications. Most recently, she received the Poetry of Courage Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. She thrives on the Great Plains not far from the Badlands of North Dakota. There she often writes of the poignant subtleties of life on the high plains of the New American West as well as a view of the world observed from that place. Some of the poets she has studied with: Rick Barot, Richard Blanco, Kevin Pilkington, Ross Gay, Ilya Kaminsky, and Tom Sleigh.