Alison Turner grew up in the mountains of Colorado, where she learned to endure large amounts of time in inclement weather waiting for buses. She is a scholarly and creative writer and enjoys facilitating creative writing groups and theater projects in shelters and prisons. She is the Curator of the South Dakota Oral History Center in Vermillion, South Dakota, where the sky is large and it's helpful to know about the timing of the corn harvest. ​​​​