Joan Michelson was born in New England. She graduated from Brandeis University and completed an MFA at Columbia University before moving to England in 1970. She developed and directed creative writing as a degree subject at the University of Wolverhampton. She currently teaches at Birkbeck College, the University of London. Several poems in this collection were first published in Letting in the Light, Editor's Choice chapbook (Poetic Matrix Press, 2003). TOWARD THE HELIOPAUSE was fist published in England by Mad Jock Publishers in 2007. A bilingual edition was published by the University of Bucharest, Contemporary Literature Press, Romania, in 2009.