Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili

Idrissa Simmonds-Nastilli is the recipient of the Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize, a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Award and the New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in poetry, as well as co-editor of BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books). Her work has most recently appeared in Vogue.com, LitHub, WIRED Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, Fourteen Hills Press, Room Magazine, Adirondack Review and O: The Oprah Magazine. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Poets House, and VONA/Voices, and holds an MFA in fiction from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is the curator of Brunch & Word, a bi-coastal literary salon, and lives in Oakland, CA with her family.