Kirun Kapur grew up in Hawaii and has since lived and worked in North America and South Asia. Her first job as a writer was for India’s groundbreaking feminist magazine Manushi. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Poetry International, FIELD, Prarie Schooner, and many other journals and news outlets. Her first book, Visiting Indira Gandhi's Palmist (2015), was awarded the 2015 Antivenom Poetry Award and was a finalist for the Mass Book Prize, the Julie Suk Award, and several other prizes. Her second book, Women in the Waiting Room, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.
Kapur has taught creative writing at Boston University and Brandeis University, and has been granted fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Vermont Studio Center, and MacDowell. Her additional honors include the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize in Poetry, the Nazim Hikmet Prize, and a Glenna Luschei award. Currently she lectures at Amherst College and serves as the poetry editor for The Drum Literary Magazine.
