Irene Vázquez is a Black Mexican American poet and journalist, currently based in Hoboken, NJ, who writes at the intersection of Black cultural work, placemaking and the environment. Irene's debut chapbook Take Me To the Water was released by Bloof Books in October 2022. By day, Irene works at Levine Querido, editing books about feisty twelve-year-olds. In the Spring of 2022, Irene was named a Brooklyn Poets Fellow for study in Bernard Ferguson’s workshop on the poetics of climate change. 
   Irene completed a B.A. summa cum laude in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and English at Yale. In 2021, with the support of the Pulitzer Center, Irene reported on environmental justice advocacy and healing in Black and Indigenous communities on the Louisiana coast. Irene is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated writer.
​   When not writing, Irene likes drinking coffee, watching the WNBA, and reminding folks that the South has something to say. 

Selected Awards and Commendations

• Pushcart Prize nominee, Hennepin Review, 2022
• Best of the Net nominee, Muzzle Magazine, 2022
• Brooklyn Poets Fellow, Spring 2022
• Yale English Department, John Hubbard Curtis Prize, 2021
• Yale English Department, Henry Strong Prize in American Literature, 2021
• Yale Daily News Magazine's Wallace Prize, 2nd place, 2021 
• ​National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Scholarship Winner, 2020​

Photo: Gerardo Velasquez