James Shea is the author of Star in the Eye, selected for the 2008 Fence Modern Poets Series and named as a "Favorite Book of 2008" by the Chicago Sun-Times. His work has appeared in various journals, including Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and The Iowa Review. His translations of Japanese poetry can be found in The Iowa Review, Circumference, and Gin’yu. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, and as a poet-in-residence in the Chicago public schools, where he received the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Gwendolyn Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was included recently in the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poets series, and his second collection is forthcoming from Fence Books.