Sandra Simonds: Writing the Void

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Sandra Simonds is an award-winning writer and professor who has taught at Bennington College, Florida State University, and Thomas University. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Triptychs (Wave Books, November 2022) which was a 2022 New York Times selection. Her awards include the University of Akron Poetry Prize for Further Problems with Pleasure and the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Prize for Mother Was a Tragic Girl. She has been a finalist for numerous awards including the National Poetry Series. Her first novel, Assia (Noemi Press, 2023), based on the life of Assia Wevill, is currently #2 on the SPD bestseller list and was shortlisted for the Dzanc Fiction Prize. Her poetry and criticism have been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, the Best American Poetry, Poetry, the American Poetry Review, the Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and others. She was the recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award for her sonnet “Red Wand,” which was published on the Academy of American Poets website. She has also been granted residencies at Millay Arts Colony, Vermont Studio Center and Studio Faire in Southern France. She earned a BA in psychology and English at UCLA, an MFA at the University of Montana, and her PhD (with honors) at Florida State University.