From Jamaica, and born to a Jamaican father and Venezuelan mother, Shara McCallum is the author of seven books published in the US and UK, including Behold, forthcoming in 2026, No Ruined Stone, winner of the 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and Madwoman, winner of the 2018 OCM Bocas Caribbean Poetry Prize and the 2018 New England Poetry Club Motton Prize. McCallum’s poems and essays have appeared in journals, anthologies, and textbooks throughout the US, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Asia; have been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Turkish, and Dutch; and have been set to music by composers Marta Gentilucci and Gity Razaz. From 2021-22, she served as the Penn State Laureate. She is presently an Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State.

Shara McCallum's work featured in Stand Magazine comprises three contributions of poetry and one article, over a period of seven years.