Tana Jean Welch is the author of the poetry collections In Parachutes Descending (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) and Latest Volcano (Marsh Hawk Press, 2016). Her poetry has appeared in The New York Times, and in journals including The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and The Colorado Review. Her critical analysis of poetry and medicine, Advancing Medical Posthumanism through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (Palgrave, 2024), places contemporary poetics in dialogue with biomedicine in order to create a framework for a posthuman affirmative ethics within the culture of healthcare. As both a poet and a scholar, Welch is interested in how poetry can encourage us to think both critically and inclusively about our bodily entanglements—the complexity of our physical relationships. Born and raised in Fresno, California, she currently lives in Tallahassee where she is Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at the Florida State University College of Medicine.