The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest was the debut poetry collection for North Carolina's first woman Poet Laureate (2005-09), Kathryn Stripling Byer, and was published by Texas Tech Press in 1986 as part of the Associated Writing Programs Award Series, selected by John Frederick Nims, who said, "This is one of those rare books of poetry-earthy, sensuous, brave-spirited-that gives us the feeling of a full human life as vividly as a novel aspires to do." Byer is the author of five other volumes of poems, all with Louisiana State University Press, including her latest, Descent, winner of the 2013 SIBA Book Award for Poetry.