photo by Alexa Rene’ RiveraKailah Figueroa is a rhetorical engineer, memory archivist, and part-time prose stylist. Her
writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Black
Warrior Review, Torch Literary Arts, The Cincinnati Review, Pigeon Pages, and others. In 2019, she founded Mid-heaven Magazine, an online zine dedicated for weird and sad girl art & writing. She was a 2021
recipient of the Fulbright UK Summer Institute at the University of Bristol:
Arts, Activism, and Social Justice. And in 2023, she was a Pushcart
Prize nominee for her poem “After My Bipolar Diagnosis I make several phone calls and
everyone says that makes sense” published in Torch Literary Arts. In 2024, Figueroa was awarded a 4-week writing residency at Vermont Studio Center where she received the Civil Society Institute Fellowship, a prestigious award bestowed upon an individual who demonstrates exceptional creative talent and a commitment to their artistic practice.
Born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Figueroa has studied at American College of the Mediterranean (ACM-IAU), the University of Bristol, and Susquehanna University where she received her B.A in Creative Writing. She is a Poetry MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark '25 where she also teaches. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection and novel.
She likes karaoke, fresh flowers, Alice Coltrane, Ethel Cain, playing pool, reading by candle light, and vintage designer shoes. You can see more of her on Instagram @kailahfigueroa or on her Substack newsletter, The Saddest Girl in ______
Born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Figueroa has studied at American College of the Mediterranean (ACM-IAU), the University of Bristol, and Susquehanna University where she received her B.A in Creative Writing. She is a Poetry MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark '25 where she also teaches. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection and novel.
She likes karaoke, fresh flowers, Alice Coltrane, Ethel Cain, playing pool, reading by candle light, and vintage designer shoes. You can see more of her on Instagram @kailahfigueroa or on her Substack newsletter, The Saddest Girl in ______