Michael Schmeltzer is a biracial author originally from Japan. He currently lives in Seattle where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Floating Bridge Press. His award-winning poetry book Empire of Surrender is forthcoming from Wandering Aengus Press in 2022. Along with Meghan McClure, he is the co-author of the nonfiction book A Single Throat Opens, a lyric exploration of addiction and family. His debut full-length Blood Song (Two Sylvias Press, 2016) was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry, the Julie Suk Award, and the Coil Book Award. His honors include a Jack Straw Fellowship, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. He has been a finalist for numerous including: the Four Way Books Intro and Levis Prizes, the Zone 3 Press First Book Prize, the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, the OSU Press/The Journal Award, and most recently the Jake Adam York Prize.