Zil­ka Joseph was born in Mum­bai, and lived in Kolkata. Her work is influ­enced by Indian/​Eastern and West­ern cul­tures, and her Bene Israel roots. She has been nom­i­nat­ed sev­er­al times for a Push­cart, and for a Best of the Net, has won many hon­ors, par­tic­i­pat­ed in lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals and read­ings, and has been fea­tured on NPR/​Michigan Radio, and sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al online inter­views and jour­nals. Her work has appeared in Poet­ry, Poet­ry Dai­ly, The Writ­ers’ Chron­i­cle, Fron­tier Poet­ry, Keny­on Review Online, Michi­gan Quar­ter­ly Review, Belt­way Poet­ry Review, Asia Lit­er­ary Review, Poet­ry at Sangam, The Punch Mag­a­zine, Review Amer­i­cana, Gas­tro­nom­i­ca, and in antholo­gies such as 101 Jew­ish Poems for the Third Mil­len­ni­um, The Kali Project, RESPECT: An Anthol­o­gy of Detroit Music Poet­ry, Mat­waala Anthol­o­gy of Poets from South Asia (which she co-edit­ed), Cheers To Mus­es: Con­tem­po­rary Works by Asian Amer­i­can Women, Uncom­mon Core: Con­tem­po­rary Poems for Liv­ing and Learn­ing, and India: A Light With­in (a col­lab­o­ra­tive project). She was award­ed a Zell Fel­low­ship (MFA pro­gram), the Michael R. Gut­ter­man award for poet­ry, and the Elsie Choy Lee Schol­ar­ship (Cen­ter for the Edu­ca­tion of Women) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan. Her pre­vi­ous Mayap­ple books are Lands I Live in (2007) and In Our Beau­ti­ful Bones (2021). Zil­ka teach­es cre­ative writ­ing work­shops in Ann Arbor, Michi­gan, and is a free­lance edi­tor, a man­u­script coach, and a men­tor to her students.