2017-2018
Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a father from South India. She attended The Ohio State University where she received her B.A. in English and her M.F.A. in poetry and creative non-fiction and was then awarded the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at UW-Madison. Currently a Professor in The University of Mississippi's MFA program in creative writing, she has also served as the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at The University of Mississippi, and as Professor of English at State University of New York-Fredonia, where she taught creative writing and environmental literature. She is the author of the forthcoming book of illustrated nature essays, World of Wonder (Milkweed, 2018), and three poetry collections: Lucky Fish (2011); At the Drive-In Volcano (2007), winner of the Balcones Prize; and Miracle Fruit (2003), winner of the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the Global Filipino Award and a finalist for The Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite (2014), a collaboration of nature poems with the poet Ross Gay. Other awards include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, the Angoff Award from The Literary Review, the Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, The Richard Hugo Prize from Poetry Northwest, an Associated Writing Programs Intro Award in creative non-fiction, and fellowships to the MacDowell Arts Colony. She is the poetry editor of Orion magazine and her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Tin House.