“I am a multi-genre prose writer who explores the space between what's expected of Black women and girls and who they authentically are. That space embraces the absurd, contains the unconventional, and never shies away from writing about Black women's bodies, Black women's desires, and Black women's fears. My work is set in my hometown of Washington, DC but I had to go to southern New Mexico to finally write about the place where I grew up. With the encouragement of the faculty and my fellow students, I was able to put on the page the people and places that meant so much to me. I had wanted to write since I was a girl but I became a writer at NMSU.”

Camille Acker is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection Training School for Negro Girls published by The Feminist Press. She grew up in Washington, D.C and holds a B.A. in English from Howard University and an M.F.A in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University. Her writing has received support from the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Voices of Our Nations Arts, and Millay Colony for the Arts, among others. As a creative writing teacher, she has advised and mentored students across the United States including at Haverford College, New Mexico State University, Tin House Writers Workshop, University of the Arts, Chicago Writers Studio, and Blue Stoop in Philadelphia. She was a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in 2020 and a Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in 2022. Her work has been published in The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Electric Literature, as an Audible Original, and in the anthology On Girlhood: 15 Stories From the Well-Read Black Girl Library. A novel and new short story collection are under contract at Penguin Random House. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.