Maurya Simon’s tenth volume, The Wilderness: New & Selected Poems, received the 2019 Gold Medal in Poetry from the Independent Booksellers Association. Simon’s twelfth volume of poems, The Blue Bridge, is forthcoming from Etruscan Press in early 2026. She’s been awarded an NEA Fellowship and residencies at the American Academy in Rome and the MacDowell Colony. Her poetry’s been translated into Hebrew, French, Spanish, Greek, and Farsi. Simon’s a Professor of the Graduate Division and a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Riverside. She divides her time between the Angeles National Forest and San Clemente, California.