Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan was born in Santa Monica, California, and raised in Los Angeles. Claire was an accomplished poet, scholar, teacher, and animal-lover. She received her BA in English from Loyola Marymount University in L.A. She went on to earn an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow (under the mentorship of Rita Dove); an MA in Literature from the University of California, Berkeley; and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston, where she was a Cambor Fellow. She published two acclaimed books of poetry: Shadow Mountain (Four Way Books, 2008) and Bear, Diamonds and Crane (Four Way Books, 2011). Shadow Mountain was the 2006 winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry. Kageyama- Ramakrishnan passed away in 2016 and is survived by her husband, Raj, and their daughter, Vidya.
