Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer, scholar, and performer. She is the author of two books In the  Away Time (Autofocus Books, April 2024) and the length of this gap (Damaged Goods, August 2018); and two chapbooks sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl, 2017) and Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures, 2012). She has published creative and critical writing in Feminist Studies, Bombay Gin, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Tarpaulin Sky Journal, Trickhouse, and Everyday Genius, among others. Kristen founded Casa Libre en la Solana, a non-profit writing center in Tucson, Arizona, where she worked as the Executive Director for 14 years and co-founded Four Queens, a platform for divinatory poetics with Selah Saterstrom. Kristen is currently a Ph.D. student and professor of creative writing at the University of California – Santa Cruz in the Literature Department’s creative/critical writing concentration. Her current research centers on Creative Writing, Divinatory Poetics, Feminist Autotheory, and Witchcraft Studies. 

photo of Kristen sitting and leaning forward with a smile on her face
photo by Julius Schlosburg