Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, active with the Women’s Poetry Salon. She curates Ekphrastic Writers and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Current publications: Pirene's Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Mom Egg Review, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate. Cider Press Review Book Award finalist, Honorable Mention for the Ruben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition, and Pushcart Prize nominee, Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She invented a secret language with her brother.