Gulnar Ali Balata is a Kurdish American poet, novelist, short-story writer, teacher, and translator. She was born in Kurdistan in 1974. Gulnar is the author of six books, three books of poems in the Kurdish language, Luna and Twelve Months (2006), Song of the Sad Ruins (2008), and A Breath from Letters of Borders Dream (2012) published in Duhok, Kurdistan. My Soul Still a Virgin is a collection of poems translated from Kurdish and Arabic to English by the author in 2010. My Poems Weep to the Seagulls (2014), a book of poems in Arabic, was published in Kurdistan. Kurdonya (2015), a novel written in Arabic, was published in Syria. Gulnar has been published in numerous literary journals, websites, and anthologies in Kurdish and Arabic, which are her first and second languages. Her work has been translated into many languages, and has been published in newspapers and magazines, in Kurdish and extensively on the internet. She was a teacher in Kurdistan and taught English for three years before she left home in 1996. Gulnar received an Associate's degree in Art from Bunker Hill Community College in 2009. She has participated in several poetry festivals within the Kurdish Region, and also abroad, in Turkey and Europe. From her outstanding cooperation and successful writing, she has received awards for her work, and has been listed as one of the top Kurdish women's voices in modern Kurdish poetry.