Linda Back McKay is a poet, writer, and teaching artist. Her work has appeared in Great River Review, Water~Stone, White Pelican Review, 33 Minnesota Poets, and others. Her poetry collections include Ride That Full Tilt Boogie (North Star Press), The Cockeyed Precision of Time (White Space Press), and The Next Best Thing (Nodin Press). McKay is the recipient of awards and fellowships and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her groundbreaking nonfiction work, Shadow Mothers: Stories of Adoption and Reunion (North Star Press), was inspiration for the play Watermelon Hill, produced by the History Theater in St. Paul, MN. Out of the Shadows: Stories of Adoption and Reunion is newly published by North Star Press.