Tanya Grae

Tanya Grae (born 1970) is an American poet and essayist, whose debut collection Undoll was awarded the Julie Suk Award^[1] and a Florida Book Award^[2] and was a National Poetry Series finalist.^[3] Her poems and essays have been widely published in literary journals, including Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, and The Massachusetts Review. Grae was born in Sumter, South Carolina, while her father was stationed at Shaw AFB.^[4] She grew up traveling the United States as her father relocated for the military every few years and often writes about those early experiences.^[5] Her primary themes often revolve around the natural world, the American Southeast, womanhood, girlhood, matrilineal history, domesticity, and feminism.^[6]

Grae attended Rollins College and then earned her MFA at Bennington College.^[7] While completing her PhD at Florida State University, she received several awards including the Edward H. and Marie C. Kingsbury Fellowship^[8] and the 2018 John McKay Shaw Academy of American Poets Prize.^[9]

She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.