Kayleb Rae Candrilli

2021 PEW FELLOW
Updated
15 Feb 2022

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Kayleb Rae Candrilli stands outside framed by buildings and trees that are out of focus. They have light skin, very short brown hair, and brown eyes. They wear a plain white t-shirt. Tattoos are just visible on their arms peeking out from the sleeves.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, 2021 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

kayleb-rae-candrilli-pew-fellow-2021-06-web.jpg

Kayleb Rae stands outside gazing down toward the camera. They are framed by two tall buildings that are out of focus. They have light skin, very short brown hair, and brown eyes. They wear a plain white t-shirt with tattoos peeking at the sleeves.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, 2021 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

kayleb-rae-candrilli-pew-fellow-2021-07-web.jpg

Kayleb Rae stands outside gazing down toward the camera. They are framed by two tall buildings that are out of focus. They have light skin, very short brown hair, and brown eyes. They wear a plain white t-shirt with tattoos peeking at the sleeves.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, 2021 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.

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Kayleb Rae Candrilli, 2021 Pew Fellow. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan.

“Though writing feels most often like a solitary act, when it is born into the world, it becomes a small part of our collective…My writing becomes a small part of the queer collective, of the trans experience, of the rural experience.”

Kayleb Rae Candrilli’s (they/their) poetry balances transgender rights and environmental justice in work that focuses on the body as a constantly changing environment unto itself. Informed by their experience as a trans person from rural America, their work both interrogates “an inhospitable American landscape” for queer people and identifies and celebrates the joys of trans experience. They have published three books of poetry: Water I Won’t Touch, All the Gay Saints, and What Runs Over, which won a Whiting Award and a Pamet River Prize and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Candrilli has earned a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, an Art and Change grant from the Leeway Foundation, and poetry prizes from Frontier Poetry and Peach Mag, among others. Candrilli holds an MFA and MLIS from the University of Alabama and an MA and BA from Penn State University.