Rae Gouirand’s (she/her/hers) first collection of poetry, Open Winter, was selected by Elaine Equi for the Bellday Prize, won an Independent Publisher Book Award and the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal, the Audre Lorde Award, and the California Book Award for poetry. Her work has appeared recently in American Poetry Review, VOLT, The Rumpus, The Fanzine, ZYZZYVA, a Distinguished Poet feature for The Inflectionist Review, and Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poems for the Next Generation. In between working on her third and fourth and fifth books, she leads several community workshops in California’s Central Valley, facilitates the online, cross-genre workshop SCRIBE LAB, and talks with cool poets for the California Journal of Poetics.