Zkara Gaillard (they/them) was raised in Schenectady, NY and has roots in South Carolina. They received their MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a graduate certificate in African American Studies. Currently, they serve as the Managing Editor of the University of Iowa’s Prison Writing Project. Their short fiction has been published in Transition Magazine, which went on to be awarded the 2024 PEN/Dau Short Story Prize. They write about Black life, Black family, and the reverberations of trauma through generations.