Idrissa Simmonds grew up in Vancouver, B.C., with roots in Brooklyn, Haiti, and Jamaica. Winner of the 2013 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize, she has been a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Award and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in poetry. Her work has most recently appeared in Black Renaissance Noire, James Franco Review, Fourteen Hills Press, and elsewhere. She has led writing workshops for a range of communities through the New York Writers Coalition, and curates the literary salon Brunch and Word. Her work as an educator and facilitator focuses on amplifying the voices and talents of educators whose identities and backgrounds are underrepresented in senior leadership roles. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Poets House, and VONA/Voices. She is an MFA candidate in fiction at Warren Wilson College and is at work on her first novel.
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