Yalie Saweda Kamara is the author of Besaydoo, winner of the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize. She is a Sierra Leonean American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California and the 2022–2023 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate. She is a 2023 Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow and she has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the National Book Critics Circle, and Callaloo. Kamara’s poetry, fiction, interviews, and translations have been published in The Adroit Journal, Callaloo, Black Camera, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. She is the Director of Creative Youth Leadership at WordPlay Cincy and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati.