Jennifer O’Grady is a poet and playwright. Born to an Italian-American mother and an Irish father, she grew up in New York City and earned a BA from Vassar, where she won awards for her poetry, and an MFA from Columbia University. She is the author of White, winner of the Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry and a Greenwall grant from The Academy of American Poets. Her poems have been taught, anthologized, set to music, and featured in Harper’s, The New Republic, The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, Poetry, Poetry Daily, American Poetry: The Next Generation and numerous other places. Her poems have garnered a Billee Murray Denny Award, a W. K. Rose Fellowship, and Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Her plays include Charlotte’s Letters (The Irish Repertory Theatre’s New Works Series and Semifinalist for the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference and BETC’s Generations Award); Paranormal Love (Winner: Manhattan Theatre Works NewBorn Festival; Finalist: NEWvember New Play Festival); Ellery (selected for The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2017); Quasars (selected for The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2014 and Best Contemporary Monologues for Women 18–35); Juggling with Mr. Fields (nominated for The Kilroys List); and Persephone (Semifinalist: Little Fish Theatre’s Pick of the Vine). Her short plays First Day in Trade and The Great Gaffe are included in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2017 and The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2016 (Smith and Kraus). She has worked in publishing, directed literary programs for the YMCA National Writer’s Voice and The Academy of American Poets, and is a former producer of the nonprofit Pelham Children’s Theater. She lives near New York City with her husband, son, and daughter, two dogs, two cats, and a rabbit.