Kathryn Stripling Byer is a former poet-in-residence and teacher at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee and the author of four collections of poetry, including Wildwood Flower, the 1992 Lamont Poetry Selection, The Girl in the Midst of Harvest, which was published in the Associated Writing Programs award series, Black Shawl, which won the 1999 Roanoke-Chowan Award, and her latest from LSU Press in 2002, Catching Light. She has received writing fellowships from the NEA and the NC Arts Council and was awarded the NC Award for Literature in 2001.