2026 Keynote Speaker Aimee Nezhukumatathil
“The word poet means to make… You don’t have to necessarily make with words, you can make a pie, you can make a sketch. I feel like if you are actually intentional about making things in your life…you’re making a little bit more beauty in the world.”
―Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the New York Times best-selling author of the forthcoming poetry book, NIGHT OWL (Mar. 2026), and two illustrated collections of essays, BITE BY BITE and WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She also wrote four previous award-winning poetry collections: OCEANIC, LUCKY FISH, AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO, and MIRACLE FRUIT. With the poet Ross Gay, she co-authored the chapbook LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review.