Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Poet, essayist, and Black womanist scholar, Tonya M. Foster is the author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court (Belladonna*, 2015) and the bilingual chapbook La Grammaire des Os (Joca Seria, 2016), as well as a co-editor of Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2002). Forthcoming publications include Thingifications : : A Mathematics of Chaos (Ugly Duckling Presse); Umbra Galaxy, Umbra Reader, a two-volume compendium on the Umbra Writers Workshop (Wesleyan University Press); and an anthology of experimental creative drafts (Nightboat Books). The 2023 recipient of the C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Foster holds the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in Poetry at San Francisco State University. Eldest of four daughters, she is New Orleans-raised by New Orleanians who were themselves raised by New Orleanians in that south of the south fabrication caught among the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in an artist co-op.
Poet, essayist, and Black womanist scholar, Tonya M. Foster is the author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court (Belladonna*, 2015) and the bilingual chapbook La Grammaire des Os (Joca Seria, 2016), as well as a co-editor of Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2002). Forthcoming publications include Thingifications : : A Mathematics of Chaos (Ugly Duckling Presse); Umbra Galaxy, Umbra Reader, a two-volume compendium on the Umbra Writers Workshop (Wesleyan University Press); and an anthology of experimental creative drafts (Nightboat Books). The 2023 recipient of the C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Foster holds the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in Poetry at San Francisco State University. Eldest of four daughters, she is New Orleans-raised by New Orleanians who were themselves raised by New Orleanians in that south of the south fabrication caught among the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in an artist co-op.
