Naomi Shihab Nye received her B.A. from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she still resides with her family. She is the author of numerous books of poems, including 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), Fuel (1998), Red Suitcase (1994), and Hugging the Jukebox (1982). She has twice traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency promoting international goodwill through the arts. Nye has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall prize, and the International Poetry Forum.