Katharyn Howd Machan studied creative writing and literature at the College of Saint Rose and at the University of Iowa, taught college for five years, returned to graduate school for a Ph.D. in Interpretation at Northwestern University and, now as a full professor, has been teaching on the faculty of the Department of Writing at Ithaca College ever since. For many years she directed the national Feminist Women's Writing Workshops. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and textbooks and in 32 collections, most recently H (winner of 2013 Gribble Press chapbook contest) & Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox (first runner-up in 2013 Finishing Line Press chapbook contest). In 2002 she was named the first Poet Laureate of Tompkins County, New York. Fairy tales inform much of her writing and teaching, as evidenced by her most widely published poem:

HAZEL TELLS LAVERNE

last night
im cleanin out my
howard johnsons ladies room
when all of a sudden
up pops this frog
musta come from the sewer
swimmin aroun an tryin ta
climb up the sida the bowl
so i goes ta flushm down
but sohelpmegod he starts
talkin
bout a golden ball
an how i can be a princess
me a princess
well my mouth drops
all the way to the floor
an he says
kiss me just kiss me
once on the nose
well i screams
ya little green pervert
an i hitsm with my mop
an has ta flush
the toilet down three times
me
a princess