Elena Koneska was born in the former Yugoslavia and now lives in Ohio, where she writes poetry when she can’t sleep and teaches high school students to question things without losing their minds.

She speaks several Slavic languages and has a weakness for metaphors that take risks. She has not won numerous prestigious awards, such as the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, or the National Book Award. When she’s not writing, she’s sipping coffee, hanging out with her dog, or lost in thought. This is Not Poetry! is her first book. The rest were either destroyed or never finished.