Photo by Barbara J. Perenic for The Columbus Dispatch

Hi, I'm Ruth.

Here’s my bio – please use it as you see fit:

Ruth Awad is a Lebanese-American poet, a 2021 NEA Poetry fellow, and the author of Outside the Joy (Third Man Books, 2024) and Set to Music a Wildfire (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. Alongside Rachel Mennies, she is the co-editor of The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry (Sundress Publications, 2020). She is the recipient of a 2020 and 2016 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and she won the 2013 and 2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and the 2011 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest. Her work appears in The Atlantic, AGNI, Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Believer, The New Republic, Pleiades, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and she lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio.

Her work appears in the anthologies You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limón (Milkweed Editions, 2024), Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology (A Wave Blue World, 2021), New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims (Red Hen Press, 2021), Border Lines: Poems of Migration (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020), Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees (Interlink Books, 2019), The Orison Anthology, Vol. 3 (Orison Books, 2019), Bettering American Poetry Volume 2 (Bettering Books, 2017), The Hundred Years' War: Modern War Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), New Poetry from the Midwest 2014 (New American Press, 2015), and Poets on Growth (Math Paper Press, 2015). She recently served as the guest poetry editor for Epiphany Magazine and she copy edits for Button Poetry.

She has lead and facilitated numerous poetry workshops, including the OSU Young Writers Workshop, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Central New Mexico Community College, and elsewhere.

This Is My Book

You can buy it directly from Southern Indiana Review Press, SPD, or Amazon. Want a preview? Read some featured poems from the collection, learn about its creation, and check out the praise. 

If you want a signed copy, send me a message.

This Is the Anthology Rachel Mennies and I Edited

Available now through Sundress Publications, this collection features work by some of our best and brightest living writers, including Chen Chen, Noah Baldino, Hanif Abdurraqib, Carly Joy Miller, Maggie Smith, and Raena Shirali, and others. The poems here examine both the routine and the unexpected lives poets have built with their dogs, exploring wildness and domestication, boundaries and freedom, rescue and grief through works centered on the complicated, expansive writer-to-canine connection. Get your copy today.

This Is My Day Job

Photo by Megan Leigh Barnard

I'm a writer, and to pay the bills, I work full-time as the senior director of executive communications for a coastal property insurance provider. I also sometimes freelance as a copywriter and editor. I have more than 12 years of brand marketing, PR strategy, content development, copywriting, and editing experience to my name. I like to keep things simple and engaging. Contact me if you're tired of your website putting people to sleep.

This Is the Way to My Heart

My dogs make my life rich and beautiful and ridiculous. Take my word for it: pile dogs on top of your sadness and they will make it bearable.

I currently have four rescue Pomeranians: Winnie, Penny, Rosemary, and Henry. Pete, Bowie, Asher, Bub, and Tobi are no longer on this mortal plane, and I miss them always. We also have five hens: Beatrice, Pearl, Maude, Dorothea, and Agnes. Petunia has flown to the great coop in the sky.

My interests include but are not limited to handmade jewelry (both hoarding and making it), knitting and crocheting, perfume, tarot, good design, pop culture, grammar, and wigs. Check out my blog if any of those strike your interest, too.