Simone Zapata is a poet, editor, and educator based in Oakland, CA. Her writing can be found in publications including Beloit Poetry Journal, Foglifter, Reed Magazine, and Brink Literary Journal, where she served as the 2023 Emerging Writer Fellow in Hybrid Writing. She was the 2025 Miami Book Fair Poetry Fellow, and her work has been supported by McCormack Writing Center, Hedgebrook, Banff Centre, and Community of Writers. Simone 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

In the beginning we were waves | Reed Magazine

Stone Sequence | Tiny Spoon

A Cauldron of Bats | Foglifter Journal

COLLABORATIONS

Sites of Encounter: An Ekphrastic Poetry Zine | Miami Book Fair & Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami

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

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

HONORS & RECOGNITIONS

2026 | Writer in Residence, McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House Workshop)

2026 | Publishing Fellow, Los Angeles Review of Books

2026 | Writer in Residence, Hedgebrook

2025 | Emerging Writer Fellow in Poetry, Miami Book Fair

2024 | Poet & Author Fellow, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing

2024 | Patricia Clifford Scholar, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

2023 | Finalist, Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry, selected by Marie Howe

2023 | Emerging Writer Fellow in Hybrid Writing, Brink Literary Journal

2023 | Finalist, Sublingua Prize for Poetry, Inverted Syntax

2023 | Burnett Miller Memorial Scholar, Community of Writers

2022 | REEF Post-Graduate Fellow, California Institute of the Arts

2021 | Finalist, Nightboat Poetry Prize, Nightboat Books

About Published Work Editing Services

About Published Work Editing Services