Dr. Leslie Heywood is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University. Her work includes the poetry books Natural Selection and The Proving Grounds; the memoir Pretty Good for a Girl: An Athlete’s Story; and academic work on gender and the body such as Built to Win: The Female Athlete as Cultural Icon, and Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women’s Bodybuilding. Her recent research investigates connections between the humanities and the sciences via bio-cultural models. A lifelong athlete, Heywood has been ranked nationally in the sports of track and powerlifting.