Laura Kraftowitz is the founding co-director of City of Asylum/Detroit, a nonprofit that provides safe haven fellowships to writers and artists who are in exile under threat of persecution. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Lit Hub, POETRY, Protean, and elsewhere. She is a winner of the 2025 Gilda Award, and a finalist for the Witness Magazine 2026 Literary Awards and the Narrative Magazine Fall 2025 Story Contest. Previously, she was an on-the-ground reporter in Gaza. Her first leadership role was as a coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement (precursor to the Freedom Flotilla), using nonviolent civil disobedience to oppose Israel’s military occupation.