Barbara Marie Minney is a transgender woman, award winning poet, writer, speaker, teaching artist, and quiet activist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Politico, The Buckeye Flame,  The Gasconade Review, Gargoyle Magazine, The Pine Cone Review, Women Speak: Women of Appalachia Project, Woman Scream: The International Poetry Anthology of Female Voices,” and I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing, Ohio’s Appalachian Voices. Barbara’s poetry has also been translated into Spanish.  She  is the author of  If There’s No Heaven,  the winner of the 2020 Poetry Is Life Book Award and an  Akron Beacon Journal  Best Northeast Ohio Book in 2020; the Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge; and Dance Naked With God. Barbara is a retired attorney and a seventh generation Appalachian and lives in Tallmadge, Ohio, with her wife of over 42 years and a menagerie of stuffed animals. You can follow Barbara at https://www.barbaramarieminneypoetry.com.