Chesley “Cade” Mason is a writer and educator living in Dallas where he currently works as a Professor of English at Dallas College’s Brookhaven Campus. Before teaching for Dallas College, Mason earned both his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas in Denton, where he also taught as an Adjunct, researched culturally relevant pedagogical approaches as a Teaching Fellow, and worked behind the scenes for the university’s literary magazine. Throughout his teaching career, whether in one-on-one tutoring or classes of 40-plus, Mason has worked hard to shape his teaching methods, reading lists, and syllabi to not only reflect but speak directly to the diverse populations that make up the university and community college classrooms. With a passion for the personal narrative essay—more specifically, the essay’s ability to give voice to society’s frequently unheard, underserved, and marginalized—Mason teaches under the philosophy that anyone can write, that everyone has a story to tell, and that fostering one’s confidence is the first step in developing the writing voice to tell it. Mason’s debut lyric essay collection Engine Running: Essays, part of Ohio State University’s literary and trade imprint Mad Creek Books’ 21st Century Essays series, delves into the family and Southern queerness that shape both the writer and his home landscape of West Texas—themes that often drive his personal work. You can find him in the pages of various literary journals like Hotel Amerika, Ninth Letter, DIAGRAM, LitHub, Sweet, and elsewhere. When he isn’t teaching or writing, you can find him taking a long walk around his neighborhood or cuddling with his two cats.