Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was chosen in the Backwaters Press contest for publication by the University of Nebraska Press (March 2025). Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, The Cincinnati Review, Conduit, the Southern Review and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission for the Arts, the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Brandel is from Washington, D.C., and teaches a meditation program developed at Stanford University called Compassion Cultivation Training.©