Debra Gingerich was raised in Philadelphia, NY, a small town in upstate New York near the Lewis County Mennonite community of her birth. She has since lived in Lancaster, PA and Philadelphia, PA before moving to Sarasota, FL where she currently works in communications and public relations.

Gingerich completed her undergraduate studies at Eastern Mennonite University and received a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Mochila Review, MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry, Whiskey Island Magazine, The Writer’s Chronicle and others. Her first collection of poems Where We Start was published by Cascadia Publishing House in March 2007.

A poet's autobiography is his poetry.  Anything else is just a footnote.  ~ Yevgeny Yentushenko