Poet/essayist Mar Ka’s collection “Be-hooved” (University of Alaska Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Montaigne Prize, awarded for “thought-provoking” work. Her chapbook “Near-Presence: An Abecedarian Psalm” won the Beyond Words Press 2025 Chapbook Award. The chapbook “Night’s Door,” released by dancing girl press, January 2026, investigates the power and pull of our dreams. Mar Ka's poems have been published in national and international journals, anthologized, and set to music. Born in Chicago of Lithuanian descent, Mar Ka worked as an indigenous rights attorney in Alaska. Wilderness landscapes permeate her poems. She continues to write from the foothills of Alaska’s Chugach Mountains.