Originally from Jamaica, Shara McCallum is the author of The Face of Water: New and Selected Poems, This Strange Land, Song Of Thieves (Pitt Poetry Series), and Water Between Us (Pitt Poetry Series). Her fifth book, Madwoman, in which “Parable of the Wayward Child” appears, is forthcoming in fall 2016 in the US, 2017 in the UK. Recognition for her writing includes a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, and other awards. Since 2003, she has been director of the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, where she is also a professor of creative writing.