MARIANNE PEEL is a poet, musician, and retired English teacher. She served as a public-school educator for 32 years and continues to engage in field instructor work with various universities, supervising education interns in the classroom. She spent three summers in Guizhou Province, teaching best practices to teachers in China, and has received Fulbright-Hays Program awards to further her research in Nepal (2003) and Turkey (2009) and to support her work as a teacher.Peel's poetry awards include the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize (2021, finalist); Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize at Michigan State University (finalist); the Naugatuck River Review Annual Narrative Poetry Contest (2020, finalist), the Jelly Bucket literary journal Poetry Prize and Genre Prize; and the ESME (Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere) social platform's first place in poetry. She was awarded a summer residency at Eastern Kentucky University (2017) and participated in Marge Piercy's juried Intensive Poetry Workshop (2016), as well as Anita Skeen's Narrative Poetry Workshop at Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Peel's poems have been published in several online and print literary journals. Her poem "Fear Is the Sea That Carries Me" was published in Coming of Age: Writing & Art by Kentucky Women over 60, co-edited by Libby Falk Jones and Julianne Unsel. Peel's poem "Notes to My Autistic Daughter," was published in the collaborative debut anthology We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart and Humor, co-edited by Marika Lindholm, Cheryl Dumesnil, and Katherine Shonk, which received a prestigious starred review by Kirkus Reviews and garnered several independent book awards. No Distance Between Us is Peel's debut book.