Jeannine Hall Gailey has a Master's Degree in English from the University of Cincinnati, and is currently studying for her MFA in Poetry at Pacific University. She volunteers as a literary magazine and book reviewer at NewPages.com and also as Web editor (and currently, Guest Poetry Editor) at The Raven Chronicles. Becoming the Villainess was also a finalist for Kent State's Wick Prize, the Winnow Press First Book contest, and the Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Series and was a semifinalist for the Bakeless Poetry Prize in 2004. She also has a chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes, published by Pudding House Press.

Other poems from Jeannine Hall Gailey in Verse Daily:
April 5, 2006:   "Femme Fatale" by " Even our names sound delicious..."
March 1, 2005:  "Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon" "I miss the tropes of Paradise—green vines..."

About Becoming the Villainess:

"Gailey writes with a voice full of wit and charm that keeps the reader somewhat off balance. She serves a dish of fairy tales and myths, part vixen and part Carol Burnett. Hers is an edginess that makes new those tales with which we are familiar. An excellent read that will leave you wanting more."
—Colleen J. McElroy

"These full-bodied persona poems give dimension to the powerful (and powerless) female heroes of myth and comic books with strong voices that struggle against stereotype and silence. Make room for this new take on the oldest story in the book."
—Dorianne Laux

"In this splendidly entertaining debut, Jeannine Hall Gailey offers us a world both familiar and magical—filled with fairytale and mythology characters that are our own bedfellows—we wake up with Philomel and argue with Ophelia while half-listening to a Snow Queen, amidst Spy Girls, Amazons and Mongolian Cows. The wild and seductive energy in this collection never lets one put the book down. (In fact, any one who opens the collection in the bookstore and reads such poems as The Conversation and Job Requirements: A Supervillain’s Advice will want to buy the book!) For her delivery is heart-breaking and refreshing, so the poems seduce us with the sadness, glory and entertainment of our very own days. Propelled by Jeannine Hall Gailey’s alert, sensuous, and musical gifts, the mythology becomes all our own."
—Ilya Kaminsky