Threa Almontaser was born and raised in New York. She holds an MFA from North Carolina State University, where she also earned a TESOL certificate. She was the winner of the Unsilenced Grant for Muslim American women writers, the Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize, and the Claire Keyes Poetry Award. Almontaser’s debut collection of poetry, The Wild Fox of Yemen, was selected by Harryette Mullen for the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award. She is a Fulbright scholar and currently teaches English to immigrants and refugees in Raleigh.

(Photo credit: Yasmin Ali)