"When you abandon the notion that your wounds are not entitled to words, you talk a whole lot different. Shit, you walk a whole lot different, too."
- Nicole Shawan Junior
SHORT BIO
Nicole Shawan Junior (they/she) was born and bred in the bass-heavy beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine's burn. Their writing is anthologized in The Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing (Blair 2025) and The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket 2022). Their creative nonfiction appears in Oprah Daily, Guernica, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. They have attended residencies at Hedgebrook and Tin House. They have received fellowships from Lambda Literary, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Periplus, the San Francisco Public Library’s James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, Esalen, and more. They have workshopped works-in-progress at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House, Roots. Wounds. Words., and VONA. Nicole is the former editor-in-chief of Black Femme Collective, prose editor at Women's Studies Quarterly of the Feminist Press, nonfiction editor at Raising Mothers, and assistant nonfiction editor at Slice Magazine. Nicole has guest edited for The Rumpus and Massachusetts Review. They founded Roots. Wounds. Words. and SeaSalted Honey, communities committed to BIPOC storytellers. They are a graduate of Smith College (B.A.), Pace University (M.S.T.), and Temple University Beasley School of Law (J.D.). In a former iteration of self-hood, Nicole was a prosecutor and felon. Nicole lives in Philly with their feline familiars, Octavia E. Tuxfur and LA Blacks.
LONG BIO
Nicole Shawan Junior (they/she/us/we) was born and bred in the bass-heavy beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine's burn. Nicole is a mother, writer, adjunct professor of creative writing, editor, literary arts administrator, Lucumi aborisha, Shekem Maat initiate, Kemetic yogini aspirant, and level II Kemetic reiki practitioner. In a past iteration of selfhood, Nicole was a prosecutor and felon. Philly is her home.
Nicole’s writing is anthologized in The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket 2022) and Emerge: A Lambda Literary Anthology (Lambda Literary 2020), and appears in Oprah Daily, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Guernica, the Rumpus, the Feminist Wire, ZORA, and elsewhere. Nicole puts pen-to-paper to capture the journeys of around-the-block Black folk.
Nicole has received residencies from Tin House, Hedgebrook, Wild Acres, SAFTA, and others. They received fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, Periplus, RADAR Productions and the San Francisco Public Library’s James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, Lambda Literary’s Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, Esalen, and Sundress Academy for the Arts.
Nicole is the 2019 New York Foundation for the Arts Geri Ashur Fellow for Screenwriting, the Inaugural Cafe con Libros’ Resident Literary Curator, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Finalist, and the 2018 Brooklyn Arts Nonfiction Prize Finalist and Honorable Mention.
Nicole has received support from Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Brooklyn Arts Council, Hurston/Wright, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Summer Workshop, and VONA. They have served as a panelist or performed for AWP, Lambda LitFest, Out Write, PEN America, Salon Sundays, the BeSpoke Reading Series, Poets in Pajamas, The Renegade Reading Series, and more.
They are the former editor in chief of Black Femme Collective and served on the editorial teams at Women's Studies Quarterly of the Feminist Press, SLICE Magazine, Sundress Publications, and Raising Mothers, where they also curated a limited column penned by and for justice-involved Black women. They have guest edited for the Massachusetts Review and the Rumpus.
Nicole is the creator of SeaSalted Honey, founder & former executive director of Roots. Wounds. Words., and the former Deputy Director of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing. They have provided free, donations-based, and low-cost writing workshops and residencies to QT/BIPOC storytellers across the world, from Seattle to Senegal.
Nicole’s currently working on two book projects: her speculative fiction novel, IRE & THE GIRL, SLICE, and memoir, CRACKED CONCRETE: A MEMOIR OF CRACKHEADS, COUSINS, AND CRIME.
