Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago, Illinois to a Filipina mother and a father from South India. She’s lived in rural New York, Kansas, and Iowa, and the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio and Phoenix, Arizona. She received her BA and MFA from The Ohio State University and recently was named Alumni of the Year, a distinction she is especially proud of during football season.

In addition to Bite by Bite (2024), Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments (2020) and five poetry books. Her sixth, Night Owl, releases in March 2026. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review.

Nezhukumatathil has been recognized as a poetry fellow by the University of Wisconsin, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Other honors include the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and NAAEE’s 2024 Pepe Marcos-Iga Award for Innovation in Environmental Education. A professor of English and Creative Writing for over twenty-five years, she lives in Oxford, Mississippi with her family and serves as a firefly guide for Mississippi State Parks.