Alyse Bensel is the author of Rare Wondrous Things, a poetic biography of Maria Sibylla Merian (Green Writers Press, forthcoming 2020). Her poems have recently appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Puerto del Sol, West Branch, Poetry International, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been featured at The Boiler, Entropy, and Pithead Chapel. She is also the author of three poetry chapbooks, most recently Lies to Tell the Body, published by Seven Kitchens Press in July 2018.

Alyse served as the Book Reviews Editor at The Los Angeles Review, a literary journal from Red Hen Press, from 2013-2018. Her reviews have appeared in Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, Literary Mama, Newpages, and many other journals. Her scholarly work has been published or will be forthcoming in Journal of Creative Writing Studies and the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation.

She currently serves as section editor for Theory, Culture, and Craft for the Journal of Creative Writing Studies (JCWS), an open access, peer reviewed journal. Submissions to the journal are open year-round. She is also a Senior Poetry Reader for Cherry Tree.

Alyse is currently an assistant professor of English at Brevard College, where she directs the Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference. Questions regarding the conference can be directed to lgrwc [at] brevard [dot] edu.

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