Lauren Hilger

Lauren Hilger is the author of two collections of poetry, Lady Be Good (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016) and Morality Play (Poetry Northwest Editions, 2022). She was named the Nadya Aisenberg Fellow in Poetry from the MacDowell Colony in 2012. In 2017, LitReactor called her one of the "10 New Female Authors That Should Be On Your Radar".

Education Hilger has degrees from New York University (BA, 2007) and Sarah Lawrence College (MFA, 2011).

Work Hilger, who has taught at Rutgers, got a chance to read at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival at sixteen. In 2012 and 2014, she was awarded a residency at the MacDowell Colony, where she worked in the Heyward studio. There, she was also awarded the Nadya Aisenberg Fellowship in Poetry in 2012.

Hilger published her debut poetry collection, Lady Be Good, with Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. and LitReactor praised the collection for "honest, elegant, gritty, and beautiful" of Philadelphia.

Her second collection Morality Play, which "interweaves themes ranging from nostalgia and womanhood to technology and moral landscapes", was selected for The Possession Sound Reading Series from Poetry NW Editions, and a review published in the magazine contrasted the collection's "understanding of how Hilger views herself" with "the archetypes of a staged womanhood" present in Hilger's first book.

Hilger has published work in The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, and The Threepenny Review, and often collaborated with Dionissios Kollias on poems. She is the Poetry Editor for No Tokens Journal.

Books Lady Be Good (CCM, 2016) Morality Play (Poetry NW Editions, 2022)

Residencies 2012: MacDowell Colony 2014: MacDowell Colony

Awards 2012: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship Hambidge Center Fellowship in Poetry