Jaki Shelton Green, Poetry
Jaki Shelton Green, appointed the ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina in 2018, is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She was reappointed for a second term by Governor Roy Cooper in 2021. Jaki teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies.
Jaki’s publications include Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song (all published by Blair), Feeding the Light, and i want to undie you (by Jacar Press). On Juneteenth 2020, she released her first poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, produced by Soul City Sounds and Clearly Records.
In 2019, Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim of Flutronix commissioned Jaki for a new poem exploring the complexities of black feminism. In 2021, The Arts Club of Chicago premiered the work, which was also performed in April 2022 by Flutronix and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Jaki is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, a 2014 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2009 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate appointee, and the 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. She serves as the poetry editor for WALTER Magazine and holds an appointment as the Poet Laureate in Residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Additionally, she has been recognized on the Forbes Magazine 50 Over 50 Lifestyle List for 2022.
Jaki also owns SistaWRITE, an organization that provides writing retreats for women in Sedona Arizona, Martha’s Vineyard, Ocracoke, North Carolina, Northern Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.
Jaki Shelton Green can be found online at jakisheltongreen.com.
Joanna Pearson, Fiction
Joanna Pearson’s debut novel, Bright and Tender Dark, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury in June 2024. She’s the author of two short story collections: Now You Know It All (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), which was chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and Every Human Love (Acre Books, 2019). Her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, The Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, as well as other publications. Joanna lives with her husband and two daughters in North Carolina.
Joanna Pearson can be found online at joanna-pearson.com.