Kay Ulanday Barrett

Discipline: Poetry

Based In: Jersey City, NJ

Year at Millay: 2023

Awards/Honors: Fellow, Disability Futures Fellowship, Ford Foundation/The Mellon Foundation, New York, NY (2024); Fellow, Baldwin Fellowship, Baldwin for the Arts, Brewster, NY (2024); Award Winner, Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, Foundation For Contemporary Arts, New York, NY (2021–2022); Writer-in-Residence, Next Book Residency, Tin House, Portland, OR (2022); Honor Award, Stonewall Book Award–Barbara Gittings Literature Award, American Library Association, Chicago, IL (2021); Finalist, Poetry, Lambda Literary Award, Lambda Literary Foundation, New York, NY (2021); Fellow, James Baldwin Fellowship, MacDowell, Peterborough, NH (2020); Nominee, The Pushcart Prize Prize (2020); Award Winner, Queeroes Literature Award, "them," Condé Nast, New York, NY (2019); Award Winner, "Trans 100: 100 Most Amazing Transgender People in the US," We Happy Trans/GLAAD (2013); First Place, PRIDE Literary Poetry Prize, "Windy City Times," Chicago, IL (2009); Finalist, Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, Guild Literary Complex, Chicago, IL (2005); Award Winner, 30 Under 30 Award, "Windy City Times," Chicago, IL (2005).

Website: https://www.kaybarrett.net/

Kay Ulandday Barrett is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, A+ napper, and a 2024 Disability Futures Fellow awarded by The Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and United States Artists. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, a winner of the 2022 Next Book Residency with Tin House, a James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell, and most recently in 2023, residencies at Baldwin for the Arts and Millay Arts awarded by Lambda Literary. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, The Whitney, The MoMA, Symphony Space, The Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Colorlines, Literary Hub, The Advocate, Poetry Unbound, Split This Rock, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, and elsewhere.