Jia-Rui Cook is a Chinese American writer, editor, and producer. She grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and now lives in Los Angeles. Jia-Rui is the 2025 winner of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, awarded by Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts Program. Black Lawrence Press will publish her debut poetry book, Soft Beasts, in 2027. Jia-Rui is a 2026 Periplus Fellow and won the 2013 Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Alta Journal, The Commuter (from Electric Literature), The Margins (from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop), The Missouri Review, Puerto del Sol, SWWIM Every Day, and ONLY POEMS, among other outlets. Once a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and a news events and projects manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she is currently a senior communications officer at the California Wellness Foundation.