Nathaniel Mackey was born in Miami, Florida, in 1947. He is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including the monumental Double Trio, published in 2021. He has received many awards for his work, including the National Book Award for Splay Anthem, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Bollingen Prize from the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Mackey lives in Durham, North Carolina, where he is the Reynolds Price Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University.