American writer Mark Doty was BOTD in 1953. Born in Maryville, Tennessee, he studied at Drake University in Iowa and Goddard College in Vermont. He published his first poetry collection, Turtle, Swan, in 1987, followed by Bethlehem in Broad Daylight in 1991. His life and work were profoundly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Reagan government’s failure to respond to the crisis, decimating the gay community. His 1993 poetry collection My Alexandria chronicled his insights about loss and grief following his partner Wally Roberts being diagnosed with HIV. Acclaimed as one of the most eloquent literary responses to HIV/AIDS, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award and T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry. Following Roberts’ death from an AIDS-related illness in 1994, Doty published Heaven’s Coast, a memoir of their relationship and his experience of grief. The author of seven further volumes of poetry, including Fire to Fire, which won the 2008 National Book for Poetry. His other notable works include the book-length essays Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, exploring his emotional response to Dutch still-life painting, and The Art of Description, exploring the limitations of language to describe human experience. Doty was in a long-term relationship with Paul Lisicky, whom he married in 2008 and divorced in 2013. He married Alexander Hadel in 2015, with whom he lives in New York City.