Sharon Chmielarz was born and raised in Mobridge, South Dakota, but has spent her adult life in Minnesota. Her book The Other Mozart, a biography in poetry, was made into an opera. Her collection Visibility: Ten Miles was a finalist for the 2015 Midwest Book Awards, and The Widow's House was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and was named by Kirkus Reviews one of the best 100 books of 2016. Chmielarz's work has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series, and her poems have been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. They have been featured on American Life in Poetry, and individual poems have been translated into French and Polish. She's the recipient of a Jane Kenyon Award from The Water Stone Review. Her poems have been published in The Notre Dame Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The Hudson Review, The North American Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Commonweal, Salmagundi, Margie, Salmagundi, The Seneca Review, Louisiana Literature, Ontario Review, CutBank, and in Nodin Press's 2015 poetry anthology.
