Julie Poole was born in Seattle, Washington, and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from The New Writers Project at The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a profession track journalism student at UT’s School of Journalism and Media. Her first book of poems, Bright Specimen, was inspired by the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center at UT and was published in June 2021. She has received fellowship support from the James A. Michener Center, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, and Yaddo. In 2017, she was a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature. Her poems and essays have appeared Denver Quarterly, Poet Lore, Cold Mountain Review, Porter House Review, HuffPost, and elsewhere. Her arts and culture writing has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Publishers Weekly, The Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Scalawag, Yes! Magazine, and Bon Appétit. She lives in Austin, Texas.