Black and white portrait of a woman with medium-length hair, wearing a checkered shirt, sitting indoors with a blurred background, leaning forward with her hand near her mouth.
Black and white portrait of a woman with medium-length hair, wearing a checkered shirt, sitting indoors with a blurred background, leaning forward with her hand near her mouth.
A close-up of a white moth with delicate wings spread open, showing subtle grayish-brown markings.
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Ina Cariño is a writer and musician originally from the Philippines—an immigrant and the child of immigrants. A Kundiman fellow, they won a 2022 Whiting Award for poetry following the selection of their debut collection Feast for the 2021 Alice James Award. Ina’s work appears in The American Poetry Review, The Margins, Guernica, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Magazine, New England Review, and elsewhere. Their most recent collection, Reverse Requiem, was published by Alice James Books in April 2026, and was named the winner of the 2026 Roanoke Chowan Poetry Prize as part of the annual NC Book Awards, administered by the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

From the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources:

“Since its founding in September 1900, the NC Literary and Historical Association has worked to stimulate the production of literature and collect and preserve North Carolina’s historical resources. The Office of Archives and History is within the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and administers the North Carolina Book Awards program.”