Sandra Simonds (Author Bio)
Sandra Simonds, an award-winning writer and professor, has dedicated the past two decades to teaching creative writing and literature. She has taught at Thomas University, Bennington College, Florida State University, and the University of Montana. Much of her writing focuses on capitalism, class, ecology, and gender through avant-garde experiments with genre and form. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, Triptychs (Wave Books, November 2022) which was a 2022 New York Times selection. Her awards include the University of Akron Poetry Prize for Further Problems with Pleasure chosen by Carmen Giménez and the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Prize for Mother Was a Tragic Girl. She has been a finalist for numerous awards including the National Poetry Series. Her first novel, Assia (Noemi Press, 2023), based on the life of Assia Wevill, was shortlisted for the Dzanc Fiction Prize. Her poetry, criticism, and creative nonfiction have been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and others. She was the recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award from the Academy of American Poets and is currently working on a book of experimental essays that are a hybrid of memoir, journalism, and literary criticism. Pieces from this manuscript are forthcoming in McSweeneys, Gulf Coast, the Seneca Review and elsewhere. Sandra has also been granted residencies at The Arctic Circle Residency, Millay Arts Colony, the Archipelago Arts Residency in Korpo, Finland, Vermont Studio Center ,and Studio Faire in Southern France. She earned a B.A. in Psychology and English at UCLA, an M.F.A. at the University of Montana, and her Ph.D. (with honors) in Creative Writing at Florida State University. In her spare time, she enjoys trail running, camping, yoga, and travel.