Andria Nacina Cole was raised in Buffalo, New York. She attended Morgan State and Johns Hopkins Universities, where she earned degrees in creative writing and fiction, respectively. Her stories have appeared in The Feminist Wire, Fiction Circus, and Baltimore Urbanite, among others. She has received multiple grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, including the organization’s top prize for fiction in 2006. She is the 2010 recipient of Ploughshares’ Cohen Award, given for the short story “Leaving Women.” Currently, she is seeking publication for a collection of stories titled Ain’t But So Much Joy, Ain’t Likely to Last. She resides in Baltimore, Maryland.