Zinta Aistars is the published author of three books and managing editor of THE SMOKING POET. She is Publications Editor for a health care organization in Grand Rapids. Prior to that, Zinta was an editor and writer for LuxEsto, the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine for seven years. Her work has also appeared in the Greater Guide of Southwest Michigan, Kalamazoo Gazette, Southwest Michigan Living, Kindred Spirits Magazine, County Wide News, Daily Mining Gazette, Encore, Welcome Home, and Parade of Homes magazines, and the Latvian newspaper Laiks. She has published poetry, travel essays, stories, and articles in the United States, Latvia, England, Sweden, Germany, and Australia.

Her work also appears on many e-zines - including Xelas Magazine, Cezanne's Carrot, Boston Literary Magazine, Lagos Literary Journal, Amsterdam Scriptum, Outsider Ink, Menda City Review, T-Zero, Megaera Magazine, The Sidewalk's End, Ghoti Fish, Fiction Attic, Saucy Vox, Ash Canyon Review, Flash Me Magazine, Spoiled Ink, 63 Channels, Her Circle Ezine, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, The Redbridge Review, River Walk Journal, Flashquake, milk magazine, The Surface, BookCrossing, Serene Light, Word Riot, Burning Word, The Moon, insolent rudder (quarterly conversations), Bobbing Around, coilMagazine, Poems Niederngasse, The Paper, Poetry Life & Times, QuietPoly Writer's Magazine, Midwest Book Review, Write Sight and others. Her poetry appears in the literary anthology, Persistence of Dreams, compiled by Redbridge Review.

She is also one of a team of editors at the literary e-zine, insolent rudder.

and managing editor at The Smoking Poet, a literary ezine where the words are smoking hot!

Zinta is a member of the Kalamazoo Arts Council.