Gabrielle Bates

Gabrielle Bates (born 1991) is an American writer and visual artist from Birmingham, Alabama, based in Seattle. Her debut poetry collection, Judas Goat, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. The collection has been reviewed for its focus on human and nonhuman animal encounters.

Life and education Bates, who is a Scorpio, was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. She earned a BA in English (creative writing) from Auburn University in 2013 and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington in 2016.

Bates is the daughter of the professional photographer Liesa Cole. In 2014, she married Andrew Stahlman, whom she met while at Auburn. She has taught through Hugo House, the Rosenbach Museum, Tin House Writers' Workshops, and the University of Washington Study Abroad Rome Program.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has received awards and scholarships including the Gregory Djanikian Scholarship in Poetry from The Adroit Journal in 2019. The book was also included in NPR's "Books We Love: Best Books of 2023". A UK and Ireland edition of Judas Goat was published by the87press in October 2025.

Before her debut collection, Bates published the chapbook This Afternoon We are All Arachnes as a limited-edition poetry-comic accordion booklet with Book Arts in 2017. Another chapbook, Before your bed was my bed / Antes de que tu cama fuese mi cama, was published as a bilingual edition translated by Bárbara Bianchi Ceballos in 2024. As of 2025, Bates was also a visiting writer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Reception At the AWP 2023 conference, Bates sold out copies of Judas Goat at the Brooklyn Poets booth on the first day. The collection was also included in Electric Literature's "Best Poetry Collections of 2023" and Book Riot's "12 of the Best Poetry Collections from 2023". BuzzFeed included it in a list of new and upcoming poetry collections and wrote that the book "wrestles with motherhood and memory and the unfixed boundaries of what makes a place — or a person — feel like home."

Writing in Only Poems, Andreea Ceplinschi said the poems focus "on fragility and forced transformations" following transformative events and praised the way the collection explores betrayal from multiple angles. Shannan Mann wrote that the collection leaves the reader "wanting to re-read". An Autostraddle review stated that "Bates writes with such precision it's almost ghastly." The book was also named a "Most-Anticipated Book of Winter" by Vulture.

Bates's poem "The Dog", the opening poem of Judas Goat, first appeared in The Offing in 2019 and later appeared in Poetry Daily. Reviewers described the poem as "stunning" and "gut-punching". Bates said the poem was "difficult" to place in the book, and the Mid-American Review blog called it "shocking" for "its unforgiving portrayal of the violence we cause." Writing for Only Poems, Ceplinschi called it "he highlight of th collection". Writing for the Chicago Review of Books, Mandana Chaffa called the collection "a noteworthy debut, and confirmation of Bates's talent, heart and place in contemporary poetry."

The Dawn Review praised Bates's "ability to capture seemingly uncontrollable things", noting the book as "clenched like a fist around an egg."

Books This Afternoon We are All Arachnes (Book Arts, 2017) Judas Goat (US: Tin House, 2023; UK: the87press, 2025) 2019: The Gregory Djanikian Scholars Program (scholar) 2019: Jack Straw Writers Fellowship