Monica Berlin received a B.A. from Knox College, an M.A. in Literature from Western Illinois University, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Vermont College. She is the recipient of the Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching (2003) and the Young Alumni Achievement Award (2007). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diagram, Witness, The Southeast Review, Ninth Letter, Rhino, Fourteen Hills, New Orleans Review, Third Coast, Dislocate, Artful Dodge, The Missouri Review, Memoir (and) and elsewhere, and in Manthology. Her critical work has been published with MLA’s Profession, in Black Warrior Review, and with Dalkey Archive Press.  In addition to a handful of nominations for Pushcarts, Berlin was awarded an Illinois Arts Council grant in 2005. She won the Thomas R. Hruska Memorial Nonfiction Prize from Passages North for her essay, “The Eighteenth Week” (published in the winter/spring 2010 issue), and is currently the Creative Nonfiction Editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal. Her teaching interests include poetry, creative  nonfiction, fiction, and late 20th & 21st century American literature.  On faculty since 1998, Berlin now serves as the Associate Director for The Program in Creative Writing.