Raina Lauren Fields’ poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Gargoyle, Sweet, PANK, The Bakery, and Emerge, among others. Her manuscript, Last Rites for Uptown, was a 2013 finalist for the National Poetry Series, Crab Orchard Poetry Series Open Competition, and Crab Orchard Poetry Series First Book Award. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Callaloo. Fields earned her MFA from Virginia Tech’s creative writing program. She serves as the director of Marketing and External Relations for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music.  

Photo by Ross Losapio