A brown woman with short brown hair smiles at the camera. She's wearing a yellow sleeveless top with red poppy flowers and her hands are tucked in her blue jeans pockets.

Leonora Simonovis is the author of Study of the Raft, selected by final judge Sherwin Bitsui as the winner of the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry and recipient of an Honorable Mention at the 2022 International Latino Book Awards.

Her chapbook, Waiting for a Ripe Mango, was a finalist for the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Contest in 2019 and her work has appeared in DMQ Review, The Hopper. About Place Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, Arkansas International, and Diode Poetry Journal, among others.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Leonora holds a Ph.D in Hispanic literatures from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from VONA, the Poetry Foundation, The California Arts Council, The Poetry Lab, the Vermont Studio Center, and Esperimento Sul Respiro. She is the Currents Editor at terrain.org, and a 2024 Harriet Books Reviewer.

Photo credit: @wholeheartphotos