Norwegian-American writer Mia Kirsi Stageberg (pronounced STAH-ga-berg) lives in San Francisco’s Japantown and loves it. She’s authored thirteen books and chapbooks of fiction and prose poems; her work has appeared in New Directions annuals as well as North Coast Literary Review, Art Practical, Poetry Bay, artscanada, Oxygen, Furious Fictions, Dream Machinery, Poetry at the 33 Review, Unmuzzled Ox, TRAVOIS: An Anthology of Texas Poetry, and others. Beatitude Press in Berkeley published her novella Everything For The Beloved. As a single mother Stageberg worked in nonprofits on both coasts. She’s also been a researcher, oral historian, editor, art writer, and cloth sculptor. She can see a tall Monterey pine from her window.