Grant Hier is the Poet Laureate of Anaheim, California. He was the 2014 recipient of Prize Americana for his book Untended Garden, which was published by The Poetry Press in 2015, and nominated for both an American Book Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He was awarded the Nancy Dew Taylor Prize for Literary Excellence in Poetry in 2014 for his poem "The Difference Between Rattle and Settling," and the Kick Prize for poetry in 2013 for his poem, "Between Ellipses." Grant Hier earned his BA in English at California State University at Fullerton, and both an MA in Literature and MFA in Creative Writing Poetry at California State University at Long Beach. For more than a decade he served as Chair of Liberal Arts and Art History and Faculty Senate President at Laguna College of Art + Design where he remains as Full Professor, teaching courses in literature and creative writing.