Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer, scholar, teacher, 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 three chapbooks: sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl Press, 2017), Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures, 2012), and The Ledger, with visual artist Andy Rush (Fountain Studio Press, 2012). Kristen has recently published poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction in The Georgia Review, Entropy Magazine, Bombay Gin Journal, Tarpaulin Sky Journal, The Feminist Wire, and Jupiter 88. She also has critical essays in Feminist Studies Journal (December 2023), Working Titles Journal (October 2025), and Reclaiming Creative Critical Ancestors (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2028). You can find print interviews about Kristen’s creative and critical writing in Women’s Quarterly Conversation, Poet’s Corner, the University of Arizona Poetry Center interview series, and Feminist We Love, the Feminist Wire interview series. She was interview by Teresa Carmody for the podcast, The Lives of Writers in the June 2024.  Kristen is a PhD candidate at The University of California, Santa Cruz in the Literature Department’s creative/critical concentration with Designated Emphases in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Feminist Studies. Her research interests include Creative Writing, Divinatory Poetics, Feminist Autotheory, and Witchcraft Studies.

Kristen has performed her work for over twenty years in academic and community venues. She was recently a featured performer at Torn Page Literary Center in New York City in a collaborative performance with violinist Samantha Bounkeua; Queer Friendship is Love at The University of California, Santa Cruz; Common Area Maintenance in Seattle; the Sound Studies Reading Series in Athens; Counterpath Literary Performance Space in Denver; and Convergence: Divination, Poems, and Stories in Kansas City.

Kristen is an associate instructor at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she teaches courses in creative writing, literature, and social justice for the Department of Literature and the John H. Lewis College. Her latest developed course include Writing with Magic, Writing the Community, Advanced Poetry, Intermediate Poetry,Introduction to Creative Writing, Witchcraft & Magic, and Academic Literacy and Ethos-Social Justice. She has been a visiting professor and lecturer at Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program, University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, University of Denver, Prescott College, and Pima Community College.