Becky Mandelbaum is the author of the novel The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals and the story collection Bad Kansas, which received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the High Plains Book Award for First Book, and was a Kansas Notable Book. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker online, One Story, The Sun, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere, and has received support from Hedgebrook, Writing by Writers, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Lighthouse Works, and the Washington Arts Commission. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.