Poet and journalist celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields, Wrecking Ball Press, UK, March 2015. She’s the editor (and contributor in) of poetry anthology Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Joy, and Sexuality, Mason Jar Press, May 2017. Cornrows was listed as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2015” by Beltway Quarterly Poetry. Her poem “For the Chef at Helios…” received a 2015 Pushcart Prize nomination. Her multiple accolades include a 2017 Rubys Grant in Literary Arts, a Lucille Clifton Scholarship to attend Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, the 2010 AWP WC&C Scholarship, and residencies at Atlantic Center of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her journalism has appeared in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, Time Out New York, and QBR (Quarterly Black Book Review). Her poems have been published in multiple on-line and print publications such as Chicago Quarterly Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her poems have also appeared in multiple anthologies including Misrepresented People: A Poetic Responses to Trump’s America, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems, and Home Is Where: An Anthology of African American Poetry from the Carolinas.Celeste received her MFA from North Carolina State University and has held teaching positions at East Carolina University, Morgan State University, and Stevenson University. She was also the 2017-2020 Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Delaware.

Her newest work, American Herstory, is the winner of Backbone Press’s 2018 chapbook competition. American Herstory has also been named Best Chapbook by Maryland Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri. This chapbook focuses on Michelle Obama; it includes ekphrastic poems about the First Lady’s art choices, which decorated the inside of the White House. American Herstory was published August 2019. You can purchase it here.