Destiny O. Birdsong

Destiny O. Birdsong is a writer whose work has appeared in the Paris Review, Poets & Writers, African American Review, The Best American Poetry 2021 (Scribner), and other publications. She has received support from Cave Canem, Callaloo, Jack Jones Literary Arts, MacDowell, the Ragdale Foundation, and Tin House. 

Birdsong’s debut novel Nobody’s Magic (Grand Central, 2022) was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, was a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and was awarded the 2022 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. Her debut poetry collection Negotiations (Tin House Books, 2020) was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award. 

She earned a BA in English and history from Fisk University and an MFA in poetry and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. In 2022, she was selected as the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s inaugural writer-in-residence at Rutgers University-Newark, and she currently serves as an arti