Hey there.

I’m Max McDonough. My debut poetry collection, Python with a Dog Inside It, won the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press and is forthcoming in 2025. My poetry has been published in AGNI, Ecotone, Northwest Review, Best New Poets, The Adroit Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere, including a feature in T Magazine, guest edited by Danez Smith, in which Jim Parsons performed my poem on video alongside other poets and cast members of The Boys in the Band. My prose has been nominated for a James Beard Award, and has appeared in The New York Times, Food52, On the Seawall, and Flipboard’s ‘10 for Today,’ among others. I earned my MFA from Vanderbilt University and my BA from the University of Virginia. I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.