*about kinsale*

**Kinsale Drake** (Diné) is a 23-year-old poet/editor/playwright whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in *Poetry, Best New Poets, Poets.org,* *Poetry Northwest, The Slowdown, Black Warrior Review, Teen Vogue, MTV, NYLON, TIME, NPR*, and elsewhere. Her first book, *THE SKY WAS ONCE A DARK BLANKET* (University of Georgia Press, 2024), won the 2023 National Poetry Series. She teaches mental health and storytelling programming for Native youth and is the founder of Changing Wxman Collective & NDN Girls Book Club. She graduated from Yale in Fall 2022.
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Kinsale has served as a National Student Poet, appointed by the Library of Congress and the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities, and she is currently an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow. Her debut collection, The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket (University of Georgia Press, 2024), won the 2023 National Poetry Series. She has received fellowships from Mellon Mays, Bucknell University June Poets, the Aspen Institute, First Peoples Fund, Girlfriend Collective, and Vermont Studio Center.

A recent graduate of Yale University, she is the recipient of the 2023 Adroit Prize for Poetry, the J. Edgar Meeker Prize, the Academy of American Poets College Prize, the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program Prize, the Young Native Playwrights Award, and the 2022 Joy Harjo Poetry Award. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.