Jessica Lawson online

Jessica Lawson (she/her/hers) is Denver-based writer, teacher, and activist. Her debut book of poetry, Gash Atlas (forthcoming 2021), was selected by judge Erica Hunt for the Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize, and her chapbook Rot Contracts appeared summer 2020 (Trouble Department). 

Raised in the Midwest, she holds a B.A. from Smith College, where she was the first English student to write a creative thesis. At the University of Iowa, her Ph.D. research examined feminism and the body politics of metaphor in 20th and 21st century literature. Turning back to creative writing following her doctorate, she earned an M.F.A. from the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she served as an editor for Timber Journal. 

Her poetry and essays have appeared in The Rumpus; Dreginald; Entropy; The Fanzine; Yes, Poetry; Cosmonauts Avenue; The Wanderer; FLAG + VOID; and elsewhere, and her work in Dream Pop was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is currently at work on her second book project, a portrait of bodily vulnerability at the intersection of poverty, sex, and trauma.

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