Dara Yen Elerath is a mixed-race, Chinese-American writer, born in California and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is the author of Dark Braid (2020, BkMk Press), which won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards as well as a longlister for the Julie Suk Award.
Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, Poetry, the American Poetry Review, AGNI, The Southern Review, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, High Country News, Best Microfiction 2025 and elsewhere.
In addition to writing, Dara is also a visual artist. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of New Mexico, and her MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She has also studied in the Graduate Institute at St. John's College.
In 2024, she was honored to be a poet-in-residence at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.
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If you would like to get in touch, email her at daraelerath@gmail.com.