Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her third book, Dear Empire, was recently selected as co-winner of the 2024 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Gunpowder Press. She is also the author of over 20 books for children. She serves on the board of Washington Writers’ Publishing House, the oldest continually operating nonprofit cooperative press in the United States, and is an editor at Mid-Atlantic Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature and teaches at Marymount University in Arlington, VA.