Anara Guard is a fiction writer and poet who has lived in Chicago, Minnesota, Boston, a small town in New England, and now resides in northern California. Her latest collection of short stories," Remedies for Hunger" (New Wind Publishing), received four stars from the Chicago Book Review and was featured in their Best Books of 2015 list. Anara received the John Crowe Ransom Poetry Prize from Kenyon College and attended the Bread Loaf Writers Workshop in fiction. Her poems were included in "Convergence" and "Late Peaches", an anthology of Sacramento poets, and can be found at VerseWrights. In 2015, she taught at the American River College SummerWords Creative Writing Festival. An accomplished presenter, Anara has given readings at many bookstores and at True Story—a creative nonfiction series—as well as the 2nd annual Celebration Arts Story Telling Festival. She is currently working on a novel, set in Chicago in 1970.In her non-writing life, Anara has been a small town librarian, taught self-defense classes, worked in a pharmacy and as a public health consultant, at a food co-op and as a parent educator. She has published professional articles on diverse topics including online screening for alcohol problems and abuse of pregnant teens. When not writing, she can be found reading, making jams, or watching "Mad Men" for the umpteenth time.