Lily (she/they) is a Black and queer poet, activist, and essayist from Gary, Indiana. She is the author of Mistaken for Loud Comets, a chapbook-length poetry collection that surrounds the themes of prison abolition, fatherhood, and the Black American experience. The manuscript was chosen as the Host Publications Spring 2021 Chapbook Prize.
She received her BA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago,
where she began her teaching career by creating a writing group for students on campus as a workshop facilitator. While in Chicago, Lily also served as the Gwendolyn Brooks Fellow for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame teaching poetry to highschool students. Since pursuing her Poetry MFA degree at Vanderbilt University, Lily has been a graduate instructor of record, an Ingram Cancer Center Writing Fellow creating workshops for cancer survivors, and a PEN America Prison Writing Mentor workshopping with people who are incarcerated.
Lily has read at over two dozen literary events in the greater Chicago/Nashville area, being solicited as a featured reader and a panelist for events concerning queer literature and the Black diaspora. She has also read poems as a part of the Poetry Foundation’s Open Door Reading Series with Jenny Boully. Along with being a performer, she has hosted three events including one that benefitted the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
She has been on the editing staff for Columbia Poetry Review and Nashville Review, serving as a poetry editor for both. She also was the founder and Editor-in-Chief at Ransack Press, a LGBTQIA+ centered literary magazine and project based in Chicago.
For the fun stuff: Lily is currently working on a full-length documentary poetry manuscript centered on midwestern/rust-belt landscapes and haunted houses. When not writing, she’s passionate about traveling, antiquing, and chai. She lives in Nashville with her loving partner and two troublemaking cats, Winnie and Baker.