Laura Candler’s poetry bends toward ecologies of wonder: of the South Cumberland Plateau and Georgia barrier islands, of the intersections of motherhood and identity, and of the blip of human life in geologic time.

She is the author of Common Name, a collection of poems selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the 2026 Poets Corner Chapbook Contest winner.

Laura’s s poetry appears in Gulf Coast, SWING, Variant Literature, and other publications. Her book reviews and radio stories have been published by Good River Review, Civil Eats, Inside Appalachia, Marketplace, and other NPR affiliate stations. She received her MFA in poetry from the the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University and lives in Sewanee, Tennessee with her husband and two children. She works full time in marketing.

She is a radio graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine, received her MBA at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and her BA from Sewanee: The University of the South where she studied Ecology & Biodiversity, and French. At Sewanee, she participated in the Island Ecology Program on St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia and co-founded the open mic night Arm & Trout.

In 2009 Laura earned a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and spent one year traveling around the world documenting unique and predictable cloudscapes from earth and from glider planes. She traveled to Australia to pilot a glider on the morning glory cloud, to the Swedish Institute for Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden to see nacreous clouds (her favorite clouds), and also to Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, and Scotland.  Read about her adventures on her old blog Swooning Blue.

In addition to reading and writing, Laura loves to garden, cook, sew, and play old time fiddle. Fun fact: she once helped perform dental work on Costa Rican howler monkeys. Follow her on Instagram at @lauracandler.