Candace Walsh is a tenure-track assistant professor of creative writing at Central Washington University, where she coordinates the Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series and is the advisor to the English department’s student-edited literary journal, Manastash. She holds a PhD in creative writing (fiction) from Ohio University and an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. Recent or forthcoming publication credits include The Greensboro Review, Passengers Journal, and Leon Literary Review (fiction); Sinister Wisdom, Vagabond City Lit, HAD (poetry); and The Ekphrastic Review, March Danceness, New Limestone Review, and Pigeon Pages (creative nonfiction). Her craft essays and book reviews have appeared in Assay, Brevity, Craft Literary, descant, and Fiction Writers Review. She co-edited Quarter After Eight literary journal, produced the QAE Reading Series, and coordinated Ohio University’s Visiting Writers program.

Candace was the 2025 residency fellow at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Iridescent Pigeons, her poetry chapbook, was published in July 2024 by Yellow Arrow Publishing, and one of its poems, “Wild and Frail and Beautiful” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Hachette/Seal Press) won the 2013 New Mexico-Arizona LGBT Book Award, and two of the essay anthologies she co-edited were Lambda Literary Award finalists: Dear John, I Love Jane and Greetings from Janeland. During her time as managing editor of New Mexico Magazine, it was named “Best State/Regional Magazine” in 2013 and 2014 by the Western Publishing Association at the Maggie Awards. Candace’s feature “Caught in Roswell’s Orbit” received an Award of Merit at the International Regional Magazine Awards.