Born in Topeka, Kansas in 1979, Ben Lerner is the author of three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures (Copper Canyon, 2004), Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon, 2006), and Mean Free Path (Copper Canyon, 2010), and the novel Leaving the Atocha Station (Coffee House Press, 2011). Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, and the recipient of a 2010-2011 Howard Foundation Fellowship. In 2011 he became the first American to win the Preis der Stadt Münster für Internationale Poesie, for the German translation of The Lichtenberg Figures. He teaches in the writing program at Brooklyn College.