Evelyn Somers (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia) joined the Missouri Review as an intern and has been associate editor of the magazine since 1990. Work she has edited for TMR has appeared in virtually every major prize anthology. Highly respected for her one-on-one work with authors, both established authors and those publishing for the first time, Somers is also a prose writer whose work has appeared widely in literary journals.  In addition to her editorial work, she teaches Women and Gender studies at the University of Missouri and literature and writing at Columbia College. She is a former contributing editor for Bloom, where she has published essays and interviews with late-blooming writers. As a freelance prose editor, her editing credentials include over 30 edited books in many genres. Books she has edited have won the John Simmons award, the Drue Heinz and the Peter Taylor prize for the novel. She is a recipient of a Barbara Deming Foundation grant for her writing about women’s issues.