A native of New Orleans, SHERYL ST. GERMAIN currently directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chatham College. Her work has received awards, including two NEA Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship, the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, and most recently the William Faulkner Award for the personal essay. Her books include Going Home, The Mask of Medusa, Making Bread at Midnight, How Heavy the Breath of God, and The Journals of Scheherazade. She has also published a book of translations of the Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux, Je Suis Cadien. A book of lyric essays, Swamp Songs: the Making of an Unruly Woman, was published in 2003.