Prizes & Press
Selected Prizes
HONORS / AWARDS
Finalist for the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize, 2025
Finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry - Publishing Triangle, 2025
Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature — Poetry, 2025
J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, 2023
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Grant (Artist Corps), 2021
Café Royal Cultural Foundation Literature Grantee, 2021
New York Foundation of the Arts Poetry Fellowship, 2020
92Y/Discovery Poetry Prize, 2019
Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless Nason Award in Poetry, 2019
Cave Canem Foundation Fellowship, 2018
Inaugural Palm Beach Poetry Festival Thomas Lux Scholarship, 2018
Lambda Literary Fellowship, 2017
Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Award, Hofstra University, 2008
SELECTED PRESS
TEXT
Author Interview with Camille Rankine, for The Glimpse (Jennifer C. Wolfe and Kat Yore)
Author Interview for Brooklyn Poets, Poet of the Week (by Justin Maki)
Review of SOMS in Publisher’s Weekly (by staff)
Washington Post Book Club (by Ron Charles)
Interview with The Brooklyn Rail (by Ricky Tucker)
Debutiful 20 Must-Read RecentT Debut Poetry Collections
Author Interview in Lavender Magazine (by Buer Carlisle)
Author Interview with Leila Fadel, for NPR’s Morning Edition (by Destinee Adams Leila Fadel Devan Schwartz)
Author Interview for Poets & Writers: Ten Questions for Omotara James (by staff)
Review of SOMS in the Adroit Journal (by Joanna Acevedo)
Review of SOMS in the Columbia Journal (by Andrew Hu)
Review of SOMS in the Tupelo Quarterly (by Julie Marie Wade)
Starred Review of SOMS in Library Journal (by Sarah Michaelis)
NYFA Business of Art: Writers on Publishing Part 1
NYFA Business of Art: Writers on Publishing Part 2
92Y Unterberg Poetry Center: 2019 Discovery Prize: Manuscript Notes
Interview with Africa in Dialogue (By Nkateko Masinga)
The Paris Review: 92Y/Discovery Poetry Prize Announcement
Literary Hub: New-Generation African Poets Poetry Feature
Poetry Society of America: In Their Own Words
VIDEO
2023 The Nation Poetry Reading Series: Maggie Smith, Charif Shanahan, and Omotara James, Zoom
2021 Conjuring the Sacred: Poets of the Diaspora sponsored by City Artists Corps Grants & NYFA, Zoom
2021 Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology, Promotional Video
2021 The Brooklyn Rail: Radical Poetry Reading with Pamela Sneed, Remote Event. NY
2021 Minnesota Prison Writer’s Workshop: Before Time Reading Series, Remote Event, MN
2020 August Amherst Arts Night Remote Poetry Reading w/ Rebecca Hart Olander, Leah Umansky, Remote Event, MA
2019 “Promise,” excerpt from 92Y Discovery Prize Reading, NYC
2019 92Y Discovery Prize Reading, 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center, NYC
2017 Lambda Literary Fellows Reading, West Hollywood Public Library, CA
AUDIO