BIOGRAPHIC
Kamden Ishmael Hilliard was born in La Jolla, CA; her fam settled on O'ahu, Hawai'i. Kamden holds a BA in American Studies from The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Kamden is a trans settler who goes by Kam and works on issues of surveillance, race, queerness, contemporary art and American politics. They're thankful for support from The National YoungArts Foundation, The Davidson Institute, Sarah Lawrence College, Millay Arts, and The UCROSS Foundation. Kam’s writing appears in West Branch, The Black Warrior Review, Tagvverk, Denver Quarterly, The Columbia Review, and other publications.
Formerly, they served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, held Maytag, Teaching-Writing, and Pfluflaught Fellowships at the University of Iowa, were the 2020-2022 Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Publishing and Writing at the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, and a faculty member at Choate Rosemary Hall and Kent Denver School.
Her debut collection of poems, MissSettl (Nightboat Books, 2022), won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry. Her second collection of poems, Lissonere, is forthcoming in 2027 from Nightboat Books. They are in between things.
Formerly, they served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, held Maytag, Teaching-Writing, and Pfluflaught Fellowships at the University of Iowa, were the 2020-2022 Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Publishing and Writing at the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, and a faculty member at Choate Rosemary Hall and Kent Denver School.
Her debut collection of poems, MissSettl (Nightboat Books, 2022), won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry. Her second collection of poems, Lissonere, is forthcoming in 2027 from Nightboat Books. They are in between things.