Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking home in New York. Her debut poetry collection, WOLF LAMB BOMB (Orison Books, 2021), was named a "New and Noteworthy" book by The New York Times and won the 2021 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry. Her first book, The Grammar of God: A Journey Into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (Spiegel & Grau), was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist, a Sami Rohr Prize Finalist, and one of Publishers' Weekly's Top 10 Religion Stories of the Year.

She is The Forward's language columnist and is an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, where she directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing. Follow her on Twitter @AviyaKushner.