— Bio —

Lex Orgera (she/they) is the author of the lyric memoir, Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms (Kore Press, 2021), two poetry books, How Like Foreign Objects and Dust Jacket, and an forthcoming (2025) poetry book, Agatha, from Jackleg Press. She holds degrees in British & American literature from New College of Florida (before New College was taken over by DeSantis and his goons) and poetry from Emerson College. Orgera is an editor, has taught college writing, co-founded and edited Penny Candy Books, and is currently the executive director of Greensboro Bound literary festival.

A student and practitioner of herbal medicine and permaculture in North Carolina’s piedmont, Orgera is currently apprentice to the land on a quarter-acre plot in an urban flood zone and uses ecology, permaculture design principles, regenerative practices, eco-philosophy, ethnobotany, the history of medicine and healing, and herbal studies in both her writing and gardening life.

Honors & Awards

• National Poetry Series Finalist—2019

• Hermitage Artists Residency—2014

• Sarasota Arts Alliance Individual Arts Grant—2013/14

• Winner of the Braddock Prize at Coconut Books—2014

• Finalist in 5 national nonfiction book prizes, including Graywolf Press’s Nonfiction Prize

• Finalist or semi-finalist in 16 poetry book prizes including Four Way’s Levis Prize, the Crab Orchard Series, Ahsahta Press's Sawtooth Prize, Alice James’s Beatrice Hawley Award, Tarpaulin Sky’s Book Awards, University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham and Pollack Prize, Conduit’s Minds of Fire prize, and Pleiades’s Robert C. Jones contest

• 3-time Pushcart Prize Nominee

• Best New Poets Nominee

• Recipient of two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prizes

• Recipient of an Alumnae/i Teaching Fellowship at New College of Florida

• Best Graduate Thesis Award at Emerson College