Salimah Valiani is a poet, activist and researcher. She is author of 29 leads to love (Inanna 2021), the 2022 Winner of The International Book Award for Contemporary Poetry. Her other published poetry collections are Cradles (Daraja Press 2017), land of the sky (2016), Letter Out: Letter In (Inanna 2009), and breathing for breadth (TSAR 2005). Her latest collection, Love Pandemic, was released in audio and print by Daraja Press in late 2022. Her story-poem, Dear South Africa, was selected as one of seven works pubished in the 2019-2020 Praxis Magazine Online Chapbook Series. 

Valiani was born and raised in Calgary, first known as Mohksinstis by the Blackfoot First Nation. She left home young, beginning a journey including extended stops in Montreal, London (UK), New York City, Binghamton (USA), Toronto, Cape Town, Ottawa, and Johannesburg.

Her published research includes two monographs: Rethinking Unequal Exchange - The Global Integraiton of Nursing Labour Markets (UTP 2012), and The Africa Care Economy Index (FEMNET and UNDP 2022). In 2012, she was awarded the Feminist Economics Rhonda Williams Prize, an honour recognising research in the spirit of the African American advocate and economist, Rhonda Williams.