Meet our Featured Poet

Eli Kwake

Eli Kwake is a trans nonbinary author. Although they were raised in and keep ties with the Coachella Valley, they moved to Pasadena, California in 2011 for an aborted attempt at a career as a pastry chef. When they sustained one too many life-altering medical traumas, they switched to coding and then wrote a book by accident in 2017. Oops!

Eli still lives in Pasadena with their husband and a small garden, where they have grown everything from sweet potatoes that refuse to die to tomato plants that refuse to live. Now a published author with several books out, they are also a Twitch streamer and a full-time writer.

While they still enjoy cooking and baking, Eli doesn’t regret how things worked out. Things certainly haven’t been boring! When they aren't writing, they're doing theater, burlesque, or making mischief at a Renaissance festival. But mostly they're writing, lost in a world of their own making. After all, why live in reality when there are so many other worlds to explore?