Jonaki Ray was educated in India (IIT Kanpur) and the USA (UIUC) and graduated with Master’s degrees in Chemistry and Computer Science. After a brief stint as a software engineer, she returned to her first love, writing. She is now a poet, writer, and editor based in New Delhi, India.
Awards and nominations for her work include the 2019 Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award, the 2018 Pushcart Prize nomination, and the 2018 Forward Prize for Best Single Prize nomination. She was the winner of the 2017 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Contest, ESL category, and has been shortlisted in many other contests, including the 2021 Live Canon Pamphlet Competition, the 2020 Verve Poetry Press Open Submission Call, and the 2018 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize.
Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including POETRY, Poetry Wales,The Rumpus, the Best Indian Poetry 2018 anthology, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Hindustan Times, and Southword Journal. Her non-fiction and fiction writing have appeared in Cha, The Wire India, Indian Express, Times of India, Bengaluru Review, The HinduBusinessLine, Lunch Ticket, and elsewhere.
Her poetry collection, Firefly Memories (Copper Coin, India) and her chapbook, Lessons in Bending (Sundress Publications, USA) will be published in 2023.
Jonaki Ray 