Poet, essayist, and memoirist Meghan O’Rourke was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1976.  She is a graduate of Yale University and holds an MFA in writing from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina.  From 2005-2010 O’Rourke was poetry co-editor for the Paris Review, and in 2000 she was a fiction editor for the New Yorker.  Since 2001 she has been a contributing writer for the online magazine Slate. 
 
O’Rourke’s books of poetry include Halflife, which was a finalist for Britain's Forward First Book Prize, and most recently Once.  She is also the author of the memoir The Long Goodbye, a chronicle of mourning written after the death of her mother.  She lives in Brooklyn, New York.