Samantha Renee Ratcliffe is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry and a graduate assistant at the University of Kentucky. Before graduate school, she taught high school English for over four years. She is the winner of the 2025 Kings Library Press Broadside Contest and the 2025 Hindman School Oak Ledge Writing Residency. She serves as Senior Editor at Broadstone Books, Guest Editor for Backwoods Literary Press’s anthology Testament, and Poetry Editor at The New Limestone Review. In addition to writing and editing, she performs as the folk artist across central Kentucky and leads the Hill Writers Collective, a free local writing and reading series.