Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans. Her book of poems, Breach, about Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Coast, was published by LSU Press in April 2010. She has published three other books: Resurrection, winner of the Walt Whitman Award (LSU Press, 1996); The Afflicted Girls (LSU Press, 2004); and Judy Garland, Ginger Love (HarperCollins Publishers, 1998). She directs the MFA program in creative writing and literary translation at Queens College-City University of New York and lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young daughters.