Jeff Walt was born in rural Pennsylvania among a community of coal miners, bricklayers, and railroad workers. His chapbook, Soot, was awarded co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize and published in 2010 by Seven Kitchens Press. He's been awarded writing residencies from The MacDowell Colony, The Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Vermont Studio Center, Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, and Kalani Eco-Village Artist-in-Residence Program on the Big Island of Hawai'i. His poems have appeared in journals such as Fugue, Red Wheelbarrow, Los Angeles Review, Alligator Juniper, The Sun, Southword, Connecticut Review, Inkwell, New Millennium Writings, The Good Men Project, Harpur Palate, Americas Review, Cream City Review, The Ledge, and Slipstream. Several poems from Soot were selected and scored by composer David Sisco and performed at Carnegie Hall on November 14, 2014. His poem, After a Fight, was selected by Broadside Press for a professionally designed broadside collaboration that was made available as a free download in August 2016. Jeff is a Regional Editor with the San Diego Poetry Annual and serves as SDPA's coordinator for The Kowit Poetry Prize. Winner of the 2020 Housatonic Book Award for Poetry.