Kiki Petrosino is the author of White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020) and three other poetry books, all from Sarabande. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her memoir, Bright, is forthcoming from Sarabande in 2022. She directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, where she is a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the UNT Rilke Prize, & the Spalding Prize, among other honors.

Since 1999, the annual Florie Gale Arons Poetry Program has brought a distinguished woman-identified poet to campus for a poetry reading and workshop. The program was established by the daughters of Florie Gale Arons (NC '50) in 1999 in honor of their mother's 70th birthday, and family and friends assure that it continues today in her memory.