Debra Kang Dean was born in Honolulu, Hawai'i, before it became the fiftieth state. In 1973, after one semester at the University of Hawai'i right out of high school, she enlisted in the Air Force. She subsequently returned to college and eventually received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. In 1990, she moved to New Hampshire with her husband and son.

About Precipitates:

"With the precision of the minute hand and the broad, generous sweep of the hour, the poems in Precipitates are the result of a skilled and patient practitioner. Debra Kang Dean centers her mind and heart at the point where 'lines/intersect: then, now, and then...', distillations from living fully present to the moment deposited as 'some new thing.../in the fragile nets we weave.' Dean weaves quiet magic, fine poems."
—Cathy Song

"In a waka on impermanence, Zen master Dogen wrote, 'The world? Moonlit/Drops shaken/From the crane's bill.' The precipitates in these poems - snow, hail, rain - join what takes form, the patchwork we call our selves. Debra Kang Dean's three-part seasonal diary forms the core of this book. Here is poetry that, using techniques from renku composition, honors the ordinary, leaping and shifting from moment to moment. It is verse that condenses and compresses until the poet sees acutely, clarifying 'to the no, and al/so to the yes in this state/of transition."
—Margaret Gibson