Simone Zapata is a poet, editor, and educator based in Oakland, CA. Her writing can be found in publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Foglifter, Reed Magazine, and Brink Literary Journal, where she served as the 2023 Emerging Writer Fellow in Hybrid Writing. Simone was the 2025 Miami Book Fair Poetry Fellow, and her work has received support from McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House Workshop), Hedgebrook, and Community of Writers. She holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and organizes with the SF/Bay Area chapter of the Editorial Freelancers Association.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Nice Guys Finish Last | SWWIM Every Day
we tell ourselves stories in order to live | sPARKLE & bLINK
Deep Breath | Beloit Poetry Journal
Required Transfusion | Brink Literary Journal
Two Poems | Inverted Syntax
As Particulate Matter | Midnight Chem
Reason for Consultation | The Vassar Review
In the beginning we were waves | Reed Magazine
A Cauldron of Bats | Foglifter Journal
COLLABORATIONS
Sites of Encounter: An Ekphrastic Poetry Zine | Miami Book Fair & Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
We Must Risk Delight | Miami Book Fair & Extra Virgin Press
Catching Up on Creative Process with Brink Literary Fellow Simone Zapata | Re: Views, Brink Literary Journal
Required Transfusion | Brink Literary Journal & University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Wayward Taxonomies | Dilettante Army
Spaces of Affect and Enormity: Angela Peñaredondo Interviewed by Simone Zapata | MAYDAY
Tense Renderings: the will and won’t of spatial logics | The REEF, Los Angeles, CA
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
2026 | Summer Resident, McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House Workshop)
2026 | Writer in Residence, Hedgebrook
2025 | Emerging Writer Fellowship in Poetry, Miami Book Fair
2024 | Poet & Author Fellowship, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing
2024 | Patricia Clifford Scholarship, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
2023 | Finalist, Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry, selected by Marie Howe
2023 | Emerging Writer Fellowship in Hybrid Writing, Brink Literary Journal
2023 | Finalist, Sublingua Prize for Poetry, Inverted Syntax
2023 | Burnett Miller Memorial Scholarship, Community of Writers
2022 | REEF Post-Graduate Fellowship, California Institute of the Arts
2021 | Finalist, Nightboat Poetry Prize, Nightboat Books