Nicole Shawan Junior

2022 Alumna

Cottage: Oak

BIO: Nicole Shawan Junior (they/them) was bred in the bass-heavy beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine’s burn. Their work appears in Oprah Daily, Guernica, Zora, Gay Mag, The Feminist Wire, and elsewhere. Nicole has received residencies and fellowships from Hedgebrook, Tin House, Periplus, NYFA, Lambda Literary, the San Francisco Public Library’s James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, and more. Nicole is Deputy Director of Prison and Justice Writing at PEN America, and founder of SeaSalted Honey and Roots. Wounds. Words. (two distinct literary arts revolutions that serve BIPOC writers), and former editor-in-chief of Black Femme Collective. They have guest-edited for The Rumpus as well as served on the editorial teams at Women’s Studies Quarterly of The Feminist Press, SLICE Magazine, and more. Nicole curated Raising Mothers' limited Justice Involved Mothers column, which was penned by formerly incarcerated Black women.