Akira Olivia Kumamoto is a poet, essayist, and journalist from Long Beach, California. She studied poetry under the mentorship of Joe Wenderoth at the University of California, Davis. Her poems were featured in The Rumpus and the LENNY Letter's podcast. She won first prize in the 2015 Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing for poetry and was a finalist in the 2015 Ina Coolbrith Poetry Competition. Akira is Japanese-Mexican/Mestiza American: the descendent of WWII internees, the Tepehuán people of Mexico, Michigan farmers, and Spanish colonizers. She is currently a news video producer for McClatchy, stationed at the Sacramento Bee, and holds a Master of Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.