Danez Smith is the author of four collections including Don’t Call Us Dead, Homie, and most recently Bluff, a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.  They are also the curator of Blues In Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. For their work, Danez was won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and have been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award. Danez lives in the Twin Cities with their people and teaches at the Randolph College MFA program and the Black Youth Healing Arts Center in St. Paul, MN.