Nicole Shawan Junior (she/her/they) was bred in the bass-heavy beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of beautiful inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine’s burn. She is a black, queer and justice-involved counter-storyteller. Nicole’s work is widely anthologized and appears in Kweli Journal, ZORA, SLICE Magazine, The Feminist Wire, Gay Mag, CURA, and elsewhere. She’s a Hedgebrook Writer in Residence and has received fellowships from PERIPLUS, NYFA, SAFTA, Esalen, and more. A 2021 Sister Spit storyteller and Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship finalist, Nicole is the founder and executive director of Roots. Wounds. Words. (a literary arts revolution that serves BIPOC storytellers, particularly those who are QTGNC, justice-impacted, and poverty-born), editor in chief of Black Femme Collective, associate nonfiction editor at SLICE Magazine, has guest edited for The Rumpus, and curates a column penned by justice-impacted women for Raising Mothers: A Literary Magazine. Learn more about her at NicoleShawanJunior.com.