Heather Derr-Smith is an American Poet and the author of The Bride Minaret (University of Akron Press, 2008), Each End of the World (Main Street Rag Press, 2005). and Tongue Screw (Spark Wheel Press. 2016). Her fourth collection, Thrust, won the 2016 Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and was published at Persea Books in 2017. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She teaches poetry in conflict zones and post-conflict zones and with refugees, migrants, and trauma survivors in the United States.