Yena Sharma Purmasir is a poet and essayist from New York City. She was the Queens Teen Poet Laureate from 2010-2011. She is the author of Until I Learned What It Meant (Where Are You Press, 2013) and When I'm Not There (self-published, 2016), as well as co-author of [Dis]Connected Volume 1: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise (Central Avenue Publishing, 2018). A Best of Net nominee, her work has also appeared in Mask Magazine, the Rising Phoenix Review, and Thought Catalog. Purmasir earned a master's degree in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, where she focused on South Asian religious traditions. She resides in Boston.