A former English teacher, Helen Losse was educated at Missouri Southern State University (BSE, 1969), where she majored in secondary education and English and Wake Forest University (MALS, 2000), where she studied African American history and religion and creative writing. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including Facing a Lonely West. Her poems have been anthologized in Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VII: North Carolina, and Kakalak 2014. Her poems have been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and three times for a Best of the Net award, one of which was a finalist. The former Poetry Editor for The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, she is now an Associate Poetry Editor for Kentucky Review.