Heidi Kasa

Poet, Fiction Writer

Austin, TX
Texas US

Author's Bio

Heidi Kasa is the author of the poetry collection The Bullet Takes Forever (Mouthfeel Press, 2025), the flash fiction collection The Beginners, winner of the 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Contest (2025), and the fiction chapbook Split (Monday Night Press, 2022). She received the 2024 Plaza Prose Poetry Prize and the 2023 Poetry Super Highway Prize for poems from The Bullet Takes Forever. Her writing has been chosen as a finalist or shortlisted for Best of the Net, Fractured Lit, Black Lawrence Press, Plentitudes Flash Fiction, Plaza Flash Fiction, and ESWA Crossroads contests, and nominated for a Pushcart. Kasa's work has appeared in BarrelhouseThe Brooklyn RailThe Pinch Journal Online, and elsewhere. 

Kasa has an MFA from California College of the Arts, where she developed a lifelong interest in peer learning. When she's not working as an editor, she's connecting with writers in speculative and poetic communities, reading the most innovative books of her life. Or, she’s making artist books and necklaces in Austin. 

Publications & Prizes

Fiction

Chapbooks:
The Beginners (Digging Press, 2025)
,
Split (Monday Night Press, 2022)
Journals:
Ab Terra
,
Bending Genres
,
Digging Through the Fat
,
Meat for Tea: The Valley Review
, ,
Raw Art Review
,
Waterwheel Review

Poetry

Book:
The Bullet Takes Forever (Mouthfeel Press, 2025)
Journals:
Monday Night
, , ,
Watershed Review
Prizes won: 

Plaza Prose Poetry Prize 2024, Poetry Super Highway Prize 2023, Digging Press Chapbook Prize 2023

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector, Leonora Carrington, Flannery O'Connor, Yukio Mishima, Eduardo Galeano, Siri Hustvedt, Yosano Akiko, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Carol Emshwiller, Ayako Miura, Jasmine Sawers, Diane di Prima, Amanda Berenguer, June Jordan, Ai, Theodore Roethke, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Victoria Chang, Wislawa Szymborska, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Judith Serin, Rilke, Theodore Enslin
What I'm reading now: 
Little Fortified Stories by Barbara Black, topography of a border/line bird by juania sueños

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
American
Prefers to work with: 
Adults, Illness/Wellness, Mental Health, Teenagers, Women
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
MA
Massachusetts
Raised in: 
Holyoke, MA
Massachusetts
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Oct 22, 2025