Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the New York Times best-selling author of the poetry book, NIGHT OWL (Ecco, 2026), and two illustrated collections of essays, BITE BY BITE and WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She also wrote four previous award-winning poetry collections: OCEANIC, LUCKY FISH, AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO, and MIRACLE FRUIT. With the poet Ross Gay, she co-authored the chapbook LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems. Her writing appears twice in The New Yorker, The Nation, the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Poetry magazine, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review.
Honors include a poetry fellowship from US Artist Fellows, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. For a decade, she served as the poetry editor for Orion and Sierra magazines. A professor of English and Creative Writing for over twenty five years, she also serves as a firefly guide for Mississippi State Parks.
Aimee’s extended bio. Photo credit: Tenola Plaxico
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