Kiki Petrosino

Kiki Petrosino is a poet and author of the memoir Bright (2022) and the following poetry collections: White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia (2020), Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013), and Fort Red Border (2009), all published by Sarabande Books. 

She is the recipient of a DeWitt Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fellowship from the MacDowell Artist Residency, a Pushcart Prize, a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2021 UNT Rilke Prize, and the 2021 Spalding Prize, among other honors.

Petrosino was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of an African American mother and an Italian American father. She earned a BA from the University of Virginia, an MA in humanities from the University of Chicago, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Petrosino spent two years teaching English and Italian at a private school in Switzerland. She cofounded the journal Transom and is the director of the creative writing program at the University of Virginia.