Siwar Masannat has won the 2014 First Book Prize, selected by Ilya Kaminsky, for her forthcoming Spring 2015 book 50 Water Dreams.

Siwar Masannat is an Arab writer from Amman, Jordan. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from George Mason University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Siwar co-founded Gazing Grain Press, a chapbook publisher open to feminists of every gender and sexuality. Her poems and articles have appeared in Denver Quarterly, VOLT, Gargoyle, and 7iber.me, among others.