Cora Schipa is a writer and poet born in San Diego, California, though she lived in Charleston, South Carolina for much of her life. She is an alum of the Creative Writing program at Charleston County School of the Arts and a 2022 graduate from the College of Charleston with a B.S. in Sociology and a B.A. in English with a creative writing concentration in both fiction and poetry. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she received the John C. Hodges and John B. Emperor Fellowships for full funding and serves as an English Teaching Assistant and Writing Center Consultant. She is also Poetry Co-Editor of Grist, the Assistant Managing Editor of Crab Creek Review, and a volunteer mentor with WriteGirl. She has completed editorial work with The Adroit Journal, Garden & Gun Magazine, and Black Lawrence Press. Most recently, she was a semi-finalist for Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize, a finalist for Third Coast’s Poetry Contest and Pinch Journal’s Poetry Contest, and a 2026 Best New Poets nominee by New Orleans Review.