Kiini Ibura Salaam is a writer, painter, and traveler from New Orleans, Louisiana. The middle child of five, she grew up in a hardscrabble neighborhood with oak and fig trees, locusts and mosquitoes, cousins and neighbors. The house no longer exists, having been reduced to rubble along with almost all of the houses in a six-block radius after the 2005 levee break in the Lower Ninth Ward. Kiini's work encompasses speculative fiction, erotica, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Her short story collection Ancient, Ancient is winner of the 2012 James Tiptree Award. Her fiction has been included in such publications as: Dark Matter, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Dark Eros, Ideomancer, infinitematrix.com and PodCastle.org. Her essays have been published in Essence, Ms., and Colonize This! Her article "Navigating to No," sparked a spate of radio interviews, a television appearance, and a college seminar, as well as earned a personal commentary award from the National Association of Black Journalists. For the past ten years, Kiini has written the KIS.list (www.kiiniibura.com), an e-column that explores the writing life and encourages readers to fulfill their dreams. Her "Note From the Trenches" ebook series gathers the experiences of a writing life in progress. She lives in Brooklyn.