Han VanderHart

Han VanderHart is a queer, Southern writer who grew up in rural Virginia and now lives in Durham, North Carolina. Their collection Thou Was Mild and Lovely (forthcoming University of Nebraska Press, 2027) received the 2026 Raz/Shumaker Book Prize in poetry. Their book Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025) was selected by Chanda Feldman as the recipient of the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. Han is also the author of the poetry collection What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021) and the poetry chapbooks Hawk & Moon (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and Hands like Birds (Ethel Zine Press, 2019). They hold an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and an MA in English from Georgetown, where they worked with Carolyn Forché at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. In 2019, Han received their PhD in English from Duke University and defended the dissertation Gender and Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Han’s poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Daily, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry Foundation, Poet Lore, AGNI, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast, edits Moist Poetry Journal, and is the co-founding editor and publisher of the poetry and nonfiction press River River Books.

Short Bio: Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, NC. They are the author of Thou Was Mild and Lovely (University of Nebraska Press, 2027), winner of the Raz/Shumaker Book Prize in poetry, Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, and What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021), and the chapbooks Hawk & Moon (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and Hands Like Birds (Ethel Zine, 2019), and have poetry and essays published in Poetry Daily, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, AGNI, and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast and edits River River Books.