Nicole Shawan Junior (they/she) is a creative nonfiction and speculative fiction literary artist. Junior’s writing is anthologized in Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing (Blair) and The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket Books). Guernica, the Rumpus, Oprah Daily, and others have published their essays. Their writing is Best of the Net-nominated and a Longreads Top 5 of the Week recipient. Junior is working on two book projects: her speculative fiction novel, Ire & the Girl, Slice, and a memoir titled Cracked Concrete: A Memoir of Crackheads, Cousins, and Crime.

A Haymarket Books Writing Freedom Fellow, Tin House Debut Author Over 40 residency recipient, Hedgebrook writer-in-residence, Narrative Initiative Changemaker Author, Lambda Literary Emerging Queer Voice, New York Foundation for the Arts Geri Ashur Fellow, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference contributing writer, Junior has received myriad writing residencies and fellowships.

Junior is the former editor-in-chief of Black Femme Collective and served on the editorial teams at Women's Studies Quarterly of the Feminist Press, SLICE Magazine, and Raising Mothers, where they also curated a limited column penned by and for justice-involved Black women. Junior has guest-edited for the Massachusetts Review and the Rumpus. Junior founded Roots. Wounds. Words., an arts organization serving BIPOC writers. Born and bred in Brooklyn, Junior lives in Philly with their three children and two feline familiars.