Monica Ferrell

Born in New Delhi, poet and novelist Monica Ferrell earned a BA at Harvard University and an MFA at Columbia University. Her allusive poems often seem to molt, revealing vulnerable, raw skin caught mid-transformation. In a 2008 interview for Sarabande Press, Ferrell discussed the role of uncertainty in her work, stating, “I’m trying to let something that wants to come into being do so—poetry as uncovering, rather than invention or rhetoric, and a form of devotion and service.” Reviewing Beasts for the Chase for Shenandoah in 2009, Kristina Marie Darling observed, “Fascinated by the shifting context in which cultural traditions are continually enacted, Ferrell skillfully manipulates and revises form to explore the rapidly changing social and artistic landscape that she inhabits.”
 
Ferrell’s poetry collection You Darling Thing (2018) was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and Believer Book Award in Poetry. Ferrell’s debut poetry collection, Beasts for the Chase (2008) was a finalist for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Prize in Poetry and was chosen by Jane Hirshfield for the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. Ferrell’s novel, The Answer Is Always Yes (2008), was named a Borders Original Voices selection and was one of Booklist’s Top Ten First Novels of 2008. Her honors include a Discovery/The Nation prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and residencies at Civitella Ranieri Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. She lives with her husband and children in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn and teaches in the creative writing program at SUNY-Purchase.