Han VanderHart

Han VanderHart is a queer, Southern writer who grew up in rural Virginia and now lives in Durham, North Carolina. Winner of the 2025 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, their poetry manuscript Larks was selected by Chanda Feldman and is forthcoming from Ohio University Press. Han is also the author of the poetry chapbook Hands like Birds (Ethel Zine Press, 2019) and the poetry collection What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, Spring 2021). They hold an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and an MA in English from Georgetown, where they worked with Carolyn Forché at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. In 2019, Han received their PhD in English from Duke University and defended the dissertation Gender and Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Han’s poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in Poetry Daily, The Boston Globe, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, AGNI, Southern Humanities Review, Cave Wall, Chattahoochee Review, Poetry Northwest, Poetry International, RHINO Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Their works-in-progress include the poetry collection Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and the essay collection Southern Listening. Han edits Moist Poetry Journal, hosts Of Poetry Podcast, and is the co-founding editor and publisher of the poetry press River River Books alongside Amorak Huey.

Short Bio: Winner of the 2025 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize for their manuscript Larks (forthcoming Ohio University Press), Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, North Carolina. Han is also the author of the poetry collection What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021) and the chapbook Hands Like Birds (Ethel Zine Press, 2019). They have poetry and essays published in The Boston Globe, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, The Rumpus, AGNI and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast and co-edits the poetry press River River Books with Amorak Huey.