She writes about everything from hot chili peppers and her grandmother’s chicken soup to sacred indigenous ceremonies. About a million years ago, she earned her BA from Wellesley College with a double-major in English and Women’s Studies, and later earned a Masters Degree from Nova Southeastern University. Along the way, she won the Elizabeth Babcock Award for Poetry, the Florence Annette Wing Prize, and the Amanda Butler Sternberg Memorial Award for Poetry. Alyssa currently teaches literature courses at Wasatch Academy, an unusual international boarding school in the middle of rural Sanpete County, Utah, where the only traffic jams occur when herds of baaa-ing sheep flock down Main Street as they are moved on or off the mountain for grazing purposes. Aside from writing, Alyssa loves hiking, art, singing, Native American ceremonies, ice skating, horses, funny movies, and (of course!) chocolate.