Ryka Aoki

Ryka Aoki is a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist. Her latest novel, Light From Uncommon Stars, was an Alex, SCKA, and Otherwise Award winner, and a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, Dragon, and Ignyte Awards.

Ryka is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her collections Seasonal Velocities and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul, and her first novel, He Mele a Hilo, was called one of the “Best Books Set in Hawaii” by Bookriot. She has been recognized by the California State Senate for “extraordinary commitment to the visibility and well-being of Transgender people.” She worked with the American Association of Hiroshima Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, where two of her compositions were adopted as the organization’s “songs of peace.”

Ryka is a recipient of Cornell University’s Phillip Freund Prize for Excellence in Publication, the Lambda Literary Jim Duggins, PhD Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist, and a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University and is currently a professor of English at Santa Monica College.