Meet our 2026 Keynote Speaker Aimee Nezhukumatathil, NYT best-selling nature writer, poet and essayist
“Nezhukumatathil’s poems contain elegant twists of a very sharp knife. She writes about the natural world and how we live in it, filling each poem, each page with a true sense of wonder.”
—Roxane Gay
“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’s poems are as ripe, funny, and fresh as a precious friendship. They’re the fullness of days, deliciously woven of heart and verve….Poems like these revive our souls.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye
Books from Aimee Nezhukumatathuil . . .
Register for Aimee’s Craft Talk and Keynote Speech
Register for Aimee’s Craft Talk to be attended in person on Friday May 15 from 2:00 -4:00pm.
Can’t be with us in person? You can register for Aimee’s Craft Talk to be viewed on Zoom, as well as her Keynote Speech.
When the world feels too heavy, when the blank page looks like a sky without stars—what do we do? Aimee Nezhukumatathil invites writers to consider what the night creatures already know: that darkness is not absence, but invitation. Through a fresh look at nocturnal animals and bioluminescent beings as teachers, this talk encourages and gives concrete tips on how to keep creating, how to keep glowing, even when light feels far away. This talk will remind writers that their unique voices are necessary glimmers in the larger constellation of literature, and that resilience often looks like sitting still long enough to notice what begins to glow.
This listing is for those of you who can’t be in person at the Festival.
Taking inspiration from Mary Oliver's poem, "The Summer Day," we will look to the outdoors for observation and inspiration for several new poem drafts.
If you can’t be at the 2026 Festival in person, sign up to participate in Aimee’s Craft Talk online. Register here, and you’ll receive an email with a link to the Zoom call the morning of the event.
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: Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments. She also wrote four previous award-winning poetry collections, and 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.
2026 Craft Talk with Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Taking inspiration from Mary Oliver's poem, "The Summer Day," we will look to the outdoors for observation and inspiration for several new poem drafts.