Lauren K. Alleyne

Lauren K. Alleyne was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997, she left home to study Radiologic Science and Nuclear Medical Technology at St. Francis College, in NY. However, in her junior year, she became an English major, and went on to graduate with honors with a BA in English. She went on to earn an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Iowa State University, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Cornell University, where she also completed a Graduate Certificate in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Literature and a Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies at the University of Virginia. Alleyne is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (Peepal Tree, 2014) and Honeyfish (New Issues & Peepal Tree, 2019), and co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry. Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Her work has been awarded several prizes, such as the Small Axe Literary Prize, the Split This Rock Poetry Prize, and most recently she was a 2020 NAACP Image Award nominee, and was shortlisted for the BOCAS Literary Prize. She is an Associate Professor of English, and Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.