Deborah A. Miranda was born at UCLA Hospital, the mixed-blood daughter of an Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation man with Santa Ynez Chumash tribal ancestry, and an English/French and Jewish woman from Beverly Hills. In addition to Bad Indians, she is also the author of four poetry collections and coeditor of Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature. She earned her Ph.D in English Literature from the University of Washington in Seattle and taught for three years at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma before relocating to Lexington, Virginia. There, she was the Thomas H. Broadus Jr. Endowed Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, teaching literature of the margins and creative writing. She retired from that position in 2021 to focus on writing and creating community. In the Fall of 2022, Deborah and her spouse, writer Margo Solod, will relocate to River Song Cohousing in Eugene, Oregon on the banks of the Willamette River—just a day’s ride south on the

Coast Starlight to homelands in California.