“Myriam es una diosa furiosa”
– Luis Alberto Urrea
“One of our great American intellectuals.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
- Winner of the California Independent Booksellers Association 2026 Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction
Poppy State
A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings
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Poppy State is as elegant and blistering as fire—and just as unpredictable. Gurba is the poet laureate of righteous anger and reclamation.
Carmen Maria Machado, award winning author of In the Dream House -
A moving book about girlhood memory, ecological meditation and cultural history…where California poppies, childhood witchcraft and feminist rage bloom side by side.
USA Today -
I was bewitched…brought under a spell that offered me greater clarity, a new sense of myself and others, of California, of plants, and purposes.
Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
Backlist
Creep
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist · Lambda Literary Award winner
Mean
Ranked one of the best LGBTQ books of all time — O, The Oprah Magazine
Dahlia Season
Winner of the Edmund White Award for debut fiction
Bio
Myriam Gurba is a writer and activist. Her first book, the short story collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for debut fiction. O, The Oprah Magazine ranked her true-crime memoir Mean among the best LGBTQ books of all time. Creep was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. Her most recent book, Poppy State, won the California Independent Booksellers’ Gold Poppy Award for nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, LA Taco, and The Paris Review. She is a co-founder of Dignidad Literaria, a grassroots organization committed to combating racism in the book world, and is active in the anti-rape movement.