Ed Ochester is an award-winning poet, editor, and teacher who received his BA from Cornell University and an MA from Harvard University. He is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Dancing on the Edges of Knives which won the 1973 Devins Award for Poetry. Ochester was the longtime editor of the Pitt Poetry Series and served as president of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. Ochester died at the age of eighty-three on August 22, 2023.