Erin Bartels is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, 2020 WFWA Star Award–winner, and a 2019 Christy Award finalist. Other books include The Words between Us, a 2020 Christy Award finalist and 2015 WFWA Rising Star Award–winner, and All That We Carried, released in January 2021. Her short story “This Elegant Ruin” was a finalist in The Saturday Evening Post 2014 Great American Fiction Contest. Her poems have been published by The Lyric and The East Lansing Poetry Attack.