about alina stefanescu
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a poet, writer, translator, and essayist whose work can be found in literary journals including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, and Crab Creek Review, and various anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2022 edited by Matthew Zapruder, What Things Cost: An Anthology for the People (University Press of Kentucky, 2023), Stronger Than Fear (Cave Moon Press, 2022), The Best Small Fictions (Sonder Press, 2021), Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket Press, 2020), Writer’s Resist Anthology (Running Wild Press, 2018), For Love of Orcas Anthology (Wandering Aengus Press, 2019), and annual anthologies from Orison Press and Bending Genres.
She has served as a judge for literary prizes, including the Poetry Foundation’s 2021 Pegasus Award for Literary Criticism, the NSFP’s 2023 National Student Chapbook Prize, River Heron Review Poetry Prize, FRiction Literary Prize for Flash Fiction, F. Scott Fitzgerald Museum & Foundation Writing Prize, and others.
Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Prize and was published in May 2018. Her short prose chapbook, RIBALD, was published by Bull City Press in October 2020. Her poetry collection, DOR, won the 2020 Wandering Aengus Book Prize was published in September, 2021. Alina’s first poetry chapbook, Objects in Vases (Anchor & Plume Press, 2016) won the 2016 Award for Poetry Book of the Year from ASPS. Her hybrid collection, Stories to Read Aloud To Your Fetus (Finishing Line Press, 2018) explores how we write, imagine, and inhabit wombed bodies. She won the 2019 River Heron Poetry Prize, and her current poetry manuscript was selected as one of 3 finalists by Major Jackson for the 2021 Alice Day Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America.
When she is not writing, teaching workshops, or working for money, Alina serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes, critic for various journals, President Emerita of Alabama State Poetry Society, Board Member for the Alabama Writer's Cooperative, Co-Director of PEN America’s Birmingham Chapter, Co-Founder of 100,000 Poets for Change Birmingham, Board member for Magic City Poetry Festival, member of National Association of Book Critics and member of the American Literary Translator’s Association.
She’s been a finalist for various things, including the 2019 Kurt Brown AWP Prize, the 2019 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, and he 2019 Frank McCourt Prize, and is currently working on a novel-like creature (among others).
„Patria mea e în mintea mea”: A conversation with Daciana Branea (Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Romane)
Alina Ștefănescu s-a născut în România și locuiește în Birmingham, Alabama, împreună cu partenerul ei și mai multe mamifere intense. Prima ei carte de poezie, Obiecte în vaze (Anchor & Plume Press, 2016) a câștigat Premiul 2016 pentru Cartea Anului de Poezie de la ASPS. Colecția ei de ficțiune de debut, Every Mask I Tried On, a câștigat premiul Brighthorse și a fost publicat în mai 2018. Scrierea ei poate fi găsită în diverse reviste, inclusiv Prairie Schooner, North American Review, FLOCK, Southern Humanities Review, Crab Creek Review, Virga, Whale Road Review, si altii. Funcționează ca editor de poezie pentru Pidgeonholes și Random Sample Review; co-directorual șial PEN America's Birmingham Chapter. A fost nominalizată la 5 premii Pushcart de către diferite reviste în 2019. Finalistă pentru Premiul Kurt Brown AWP 2019, Alina a câștigat Premiul de Poezie River Heron 2019. RIBALD va apărea de la Bull City Press în octombrie 2020.
