KIRBY WRIGHT was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Punahou School in Honolulu and the University of California at San Diego. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Wright has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and is a past recipient of the Honolulu Weekly Nonfiction Award, the Jodi Stutz Memorial Prize in Poetry, the Ann Fields Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Award, the Robert Browning Award for Dramatic Monologue, and Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowships in Poetry and The Novel. BEFORE THE CITY, his first poetry collection, took First Place at the 2003 San Diego Book Awards. Wright is also the author of the companion novels PUNAHOU BLUES and MOLOKA’I NUI AHINA, both set in Hawaii. He was a Visiting Fellow at the 2009 International Writers Conference in Hong Kong, where he represented the Pacific Rim region of Hawaii and lectured with Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder. He was also a Visiting Writer at the 2010 Martha’s Vineyard Residency in Edgartown, Mass., the 2011 Artist in Residence at Milkwood International in the Czech Republic, and the 2014 Resident Scholar at the Earthskin Artist Colony in New Zealand. His futuristic thriller, THE END, MY FRIEND, and his second poetry collection, THE WIDOW FROM LAKE BLED, were both released in 2013. He was nominated an unprecedented three times in three different categories at the 2013 San Diego Book Awards. His third poetry collection, NOTES ABOVE WATER, was published in 2014. He will be directing his first film in Hollywood in 2016.