Lynn Marie Houston holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State and an MFA from Southern Connecticut State University. She is the editor-in-chief of Five Oaks Press and also the author of The Clever Dream of Man (Aldrich Press), which won 1st place in the 2016 Connecticut Press Club book awards and 2nd place in the 2016 National Federation of Press Women's literary competition. Her forthcoming chapbook, Unguarded, won The Heartland Review Press inaugural book contest. This collection, The Mauled Keeper, was a runner-up for the 2016 Cathy Smith Bowers competition.

Books by Lynn Marie Houston:

Other poems on the web by Lynn Marie Houston:
Two poems
"The Morning After the 2016 Presidential Election"
Two poems
"To Have a Dog in the Fight"
"New Year's Day Miscalculation"

Lynn Marie Houston's Website.

Lynn Marie Houston on Facebook.

About The Mauled Keeper:

"The Mauled Keeper explores the physicality of human/animal relationships —'the imperfect beauty of this savage world'—in order to create a metaphor for the emotional complexity of human romantic relationships, where one partner, like a lion who can tear apart its keeper, turns against the other with unexpected emotional violence. This intrepid collection of poems is about caretakers who suffer pain as a result of being either physically or spiritually ripped apart. Houston's poems are so compelling, so powerful, because they are a physical, sensual exploration of spaces that are both intimate and wild. Unified by the solitude of her speakers, who yearn desperately for intimacy, and by the central problem she explores—how those who give often suffer quite unexpectedly from those who take, the poems in The Mauled Keeper are necessary because they teach us to listen to the cry of the heart, be it animal or human."
—Vivian Shipley

"In this 'tattered map of grief,' Houston serves readers equal portions of regret, loss, and loneliness. Yet there is power here, too. Readers will find that 'it is possible to hurt from joy.' In poems that are musical and well crafted, she brings the natural and urban worlds together as the narrator tackles the obstacles to love and living in both. Ultimately, Houston shows readers that perhaps there is a way 'to live with gratitude.'"
—Karla Huston