Michelle Peñaloza

Michelle Peñaloza was born on August 9, 1983, in Dearborn, Michigan. She is a poet and teacher. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a BA in English and secondary education in 2005 and earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon in 2011.

Peñaloza is the author of the poetry collections All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems (Persea Books, 2025), winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award, and Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire (Inlandia Books, 2019), winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Her chapbooks include landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias Press, 2015) and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapons Arts, 2015).

Peñaloza’s other honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation as well as grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Upstate Creative Corps, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Literary Arts, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists). She lives in Covelo, California.