Jessica Drake-Thomas is a professor and freelance writer based in The Woodlands, Tex. She has a BA from Tulane University and an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. Her work has been featured in Cactus Heart, The Stockholm Review, SLAB Literary Magazine, East Coast Ink, The Birds We’ve Piled Loosely, Rose Red Review, The Lonely Whale Memoir Anthology, and Words Apart. The Start of Something: The Selected Stories of Stuart Dybek was published by Jonathan Cape/Vintage in fall 2016.