Nicole Shawan Junior is a counter-storyteller bred in the beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine’s burn. Their work appears in The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket 2022), The Rumpus, Gay Mag, Kweli, The Feminist Wire, and elsewhere. Nicole has received residencies and fellowships from Hedgebrook, Tin House, PERIPLUS, NYFA, Lambda Literary, and more. They are the founder of Roots. Wounds. Words. (a literary arts revolution that serves BIPOC storytellers). Learn more about Nicole at NicoleShawanJunior.com.