Lana Hechtman Ayers, originally from New York, resides in Kingston, WA. She runs Night Rain Poetry, which offers poetry editing, a manuscript organization service, and writing and publishing workshops. She publishes the Concrete Wolf and MoonPath Press Poetry Chapbook Series, and is an Editor-at-Large for Crab Creek Review. She is a founding member of the World Enough Writers Co-Operative Press.

Lana holds a BA in Mathematics from City University of New York and an MFA in Poetry from New England College. She hopes someday to return to school to study Astrophysics.

Lana’s poetry appears in numerous journals, including Bitter Oleander, Cider Press Review, Court Green, ellipsis, Feminist Studies Quarterly, Lynx Eye, Natural Bridge, Poetica, Potomac Review, Rhino, Slant, and Stringtown.

Lana's work also has also been anthologized in Penumbra, an anthology of specualtive fiction from the Kitstap Peninsula, edited by Cat Rambo (Tuesday Night Publishing, 2011), 20/20: Tacoma in Images and Verse (Peter Serko, 2010), Many Trails to the Summit (Rose Alley Press, 2010), Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer's Disease (Kent State, 2009), Eating Pure Light: Homage to Thomas McGrath (Backwaters Press, 2008), A Chaos of Angels (Word Walker Press, 2007), Tatoos on Cedar (Washington Poets Association, 2006), Pontoon (Floating Bridge Press, 2005), and Images From Ruin (Poetry Society of New Hampshire, 2002).

She is a National Book Award nominee, a Jack Straw writer, a Pushcart nominee, and has been awarded honors from the “Discovery”/The Nation competition, the Rita Dove Poetry Prize, and the Science Ficition Poetry Associations' Rhysling prize.

Lana has beem awarded residencies from the Hedgebrook Foundation, the Whitely Center, Orcas Artsmith, and Devil's Tower National Monument.

She has taught writing workshops for Centrum Port Townsend Writer's Conference, Mindport, Write on the Sound Writer's Conference, Field's End Writer's Conference, the Poet as Art, and the King County Library System. Lana has served on grant and award panels for King County.

Her first full-length book, Dance from Inside My Bones, won the 2006 Violet Reed Haas Award, was published by Snake Nation Press. Her second full-length collection, Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, won D-N Publishing's national manuscript contest.

Her newest chapbook, What Big Teeth, was published by Kissena Park Press, and her most recent full-length collection, A New Red, came out in 2010 from Pecan Grove Press. Both tell the true life story of Red Riding Hood.

In 2006, Lana cofounded (with Michael Dylan Welch) a monthly poetry reading series at SoulFood Books in Redmond, WA.

Lana is a founding board member of the New Poet's Society, a project to provide scholarship money to high-school poets.

Lana ran the August Poetry Postcard festival -- an international poetry postcard writing event -- from 2008 through 2011.

Currently Lana is trying to assemble 150,000 words or so into a coherent piece of fiction.