Kirun Kapur's newest book, Women in the Waiting Room, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and is out now from Black Lawrence Press(2020). Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil calls it “a must-read for these times and beyond.” Her first collection, Visiting Indira Gandhi's Palmist, was awarded the 2013 Antivenom Poetry Award and was a finalist for the Mass Book Prize, the Julie Suk Award and several other prizes. Described as a “stellar debut by a major new voice” (Andre Dubus III), it was published in 2015 by Elixir Press.

Kirun grew up in Hawaii and has since lived and worked in North America and South Asia. Her first job as a writer was for India’s groundbreaking feminist magazine Manushi and from there her travels took her through Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Stateside, her work has appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner and many other journals and news outlets. She has taught creative writing at Boston University, Brandeis University, and has been granted fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Vermont Studio Center and MacDowell Colony. Additional honors include the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize in Poetry, a Best of the Net award, the Nazim Hikmet Prize and the Glenna Luschei award. In 2015, NBCNews named her to their list of Asian-American Poets to Watch.

Kirun serves as the editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal, one of nation’s oldest poetry publications and teaches at Amherst College where she is the director of the Creative Writing Program. She lives north of Boston with her family. To learn more, visit her at kirunkapur.com.