Mairead Small Staid is the author of The Traces. Born and raised in Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of Michigan, where she won Hopwood Awards in poetry and nonfiction. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Phillips Exeter Academy, where she was the 2017-2018 George Bennett Fellow, and her essays have appeared widely, including in AGNI, The Believer, and The Paris Review. She lives in Minnesota.