KAYA DIERKS is a mixed-race writer from California. She is majoring in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing at Yale University, where she recently received the 2025 Elmore E. Willets Prize for Fiction. Her stories appear or are forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, The Adroit Journal, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. She was a Finalist for the Anthony Veasna So Scholars Program in Fiction.