Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry (SFPA), is a creator & wisdom seeker who creates poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, adornments & peace. In print since 1974 with more than 500 poems published in numerous literary magazines & anthologies, she's a third generation New Yorker, whose honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA & Rhysling awards, NYSCA grants, Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominations, 2024 IGNYTE award, among others. She has twice won Rattle’s Poets Respond. Her first collection, EMBOUCHURE, Poems on Jazz and Other Musics, won the Writer’s Digest book award. A Cave Canem fellow, she created the Speculative Sundays Poetry Reading Series, now in its 6th year. Her speculative poetry chapbook, Otherwheres, won the 2021 Elgin Award. Her micro-chapbook, Stratospherics, is in the Quarantine Public Library. She edited the first BIPOC speculative poetry anthology, NOMBONO (2021) & the historic, largest Eye to the Telescope issue #42 on The Sea.