Aaron Shapiro, an award-winning poet and essayist, teaches undergraduate writing and literature at Middle State Tennessee University. A frequent speaker on topics ranging from creative writing to critical theory, his work has been published in Teaching in the Pop Culture Zone. He is a recipient of the Michael Hauptman Poetry Prize, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, a Paul Muldoon Poetry Fellowship, and the Tennessee Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Award, as well as the Virginia Peck Award.