Damieka Thomas is an emerging mixed-race writer and poet from Northern California. She has an MFA from the University of California, Davis. She works in multiple genres, encompassing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in Boulevard Magazine, HerStry, The Siren Magazine, The New Limestone Review, The Noyo Review, Glassworks Magazine, Poets.org, and more. In 2024, she was given an honorable mention in Boulevard Magazine’s Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers for her essay “Fort Bragg: A Love Letter and an Elegy.” She was the recipient of both the Diana Lynn Bogart Prize in Fiction and the Celeste Turner Wright Prize in Poetry in 2021. She was also the recipient of both the UC Davis Provost Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences for the Year 2022-23 and the 2024 UC Davis Jack Hicks Award for Literature of California. In 2024, she was a Kimbilio Fellow at the Kimbilio for Black Fiction Retreat.

She is currently working on revising her short story collection, “Heat Visions,” and creative nonfiction essay collection, “Room for Ghosts.” While you await these publications, you can read more of her prior publications under “Published Work,” her blog under “the truth,” or excerpts from forthcoming work under “pieces.”