Megan J. Arlett was born in the UK, spent her adolescence in Spain, and now lives in New Mexico. She holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of North Texas and an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University where she was the creative nonfiction editor at Gulf Stream Literary Magazine. Her poetry and creative nonfiction has been published in Best New Poets 2019, Best New British and Irish Poets, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, and listed as notable in Best American Essays 2021. She is the recipient of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, has won phoebe’s nonfiction prize, and has received scholarship support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She teaches in the Department of Languages & Literature at Eastern New Mexico University

Her first book of poetry, The Garden Party is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press (March 2027) and she is at work on an edited anthology of narrative nonfiction focused on New Mexico environmental writing forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press in 2027. Her second poetry manuscript Louisiana Saturday Nights has been a finalist for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and the Alice James Award. She is currently seeking representation for a collection of essays called Guilty Guilty Pleasures, and a book length essay, The End of the World.