Ron Koertge, a long-time resident of South Pasadena, taught at Pasadena City College for thirty-seven years. A prolific writer, he has published more than thirty books of poetry and prose. Some of his most recent books are Fever (Red Hen Press, 2006), Indigo (Red Hen Press, 2009), The Ogre's Wife (Red Hen Press, 2013), and Vampire Planet (Red Hen Press, 2015). He is the recipient of grants from the NEA and the California Arts Council and has poems in two volumes of Best American Poetry (1999 and 2005). A recent Pushcart Prize winner, he is also the author of "Negative Space," the prose poem upon which the stop-motion film by the same name was based and was shortlisted for an Oscar in Animated Short Films in 2018.