Paisley Rekdal is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven books of poetry, including Nightingale, Appropriate: A Provocation, and, most recently, West: A Translation, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She is the editor and creator of the digital archive projects West, Mapping Literary Utah, and Mapping Salt Lake City. Her work has received the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes, the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and various state arts council awards. A former Utah poet laureate, she teaches at the University of Utah, where she directs the American West Center.