Lisa Olstein

Lisa Olstein is the author of six poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press: Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (2006), winner of the Hayden Carruth Award; Lost Alphabet (2009), a Library Journal best book of the year; Little Stranger (2013), a Lannan Literary Selection; Late Empire (2017); Dream Apartment (2023), a finalist of the Writers League of Texas Book Award; and Distinguished Office of Echoes (2025), a collection of collage- and erasure-based poems engaging archival reference texts. Her chapbook The Resemblance of the Enzymes of Grasses to Those of Whales Is a Family Resemblance (2016) was selected by Shane McCrae for an Essay Press prize. Olstein’s nonfiction includes Pain Studies (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020; Hanser, 2021), a Mayor’s Book Club selection and winner of a Writers League of Texas Discovery Award; and Climate (Essay Press, 2022), an exchange of epistolary essays co-written with Julie Carr. (Source)