Raena Shirali is the author of two collections of poetry. Her first book, GILT, was released by YesYes Books in 2017 and won the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. Published by Black Lawrence Press in October 2022, her second book, summonings, won the 2021 Hudson Prize and was shortlisted for the 2022 Julie Suk Award. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, Shirali is also the recipient of prizes and honors from VIDA, Gulf Coast, Boston Review, & Cosmonauts Avenue. She has held residencies at Yaddo, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Portland Community College’s Carolyn Moore Writers House, Escribe Aquí, and Bucknell University. Raena’s poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, The Nation, The Rumpus, carte blanche, & elsewhere. She co-organized the We (Too) Are Philly festival in 2018 and Holy Family University’s Distinguished Writers Series from 2019 to 2024. Raena now serves as Contributing Editor for swamp pink and Manuscript Reviewer for CavanKerry Press. She holds an MFA in Poetry from The Ohio State University and lives in Philadelphia.