Moira Magneson

Born on September 29, 1956, in Martinez, California, Moira Magneson grew up in nearby Oakland. She received a BA in liberal arts from Evergreen State College and an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Magneson is the author of In the Eye of the Elephant (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2025) and the chapbook He Drank Because (Rattlesnake Press, 2008). She is also the author of the novella A River Called Home: A River Fable (Toad Road Press, 2024), illustrated by Robin Center. 

Magneson is the recipient of several awards, including Alehouse Press’s Happy Hour Poetry Award and first place in San Francisco Bay Guardian’s poetry contest. 

On February 6, 2026, in response to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency’s killings of poet Renée Good, Silverio Villegas González, Keith Porter Jr., Alex Pretti, and other individuals across the United States, Magneson created A Courage of Poets, in which nearly two hundred poets, writers, and artists gathered to participate in a collective cento on the California State Capitol steps. In 2024, she was the resident poet for the El Dorado–based arts collective ForestSong. 

Magneson lives in the Sierra foothills where she freelances as an editor and serves as El Dorado County’s fifth poet laureate.