OLA HADI was born in Kuwait City in 1982. An immigrant of Iraqi descent, she grew up in Imperial Beach, a border-beach town of San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Economy of Industrial Societies from U.C. Berkeley. She founded the Drunk Poets Society of Ocean Beach, a poetry reading that is a continuing tradition. Ola Hadi currently lives in San Diego where she teaches World History and World Geography.