No One Is Home Photograph

Faylita Hicks (pronouns: she/her/they) is a queer writer and the Editor-in-Chief of the Austin-based literary journal Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University, and has received fellowships and residencies from Lambda Literary, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Tin House, Right of Return USA, and the Vermont Studio Center. Hicks's debut poetry collection HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019) is a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award and the Julie Suk Award. Her poems and essays have been featured in or are forthcoming in Adroit, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Huffpost, Longreads, Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, the Rumpus, Slate, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, and elsewhere. They work to educate the public on issues and policies related to pretrial incarceration and cash bail through poetry, personal essays, photography, and music. They are a Right of Return USA Fellow (2020), a recipient of a 2020 Tin House Residency, a Lambda Literary Writing Retreat Emerging LGBTQ Voices Nonfiction Fellow (2019), a Jack Jones Literary Arts “Culture, Too” Gender/Sexuality Fellow (2019), a finalist for Palette Poetry’s 2019 Spotlight Award, and a winner of Catapult's Inaugural 2019 Black History Month Workshop Scholarship. The Founder/Creative Director of Arrondi Creative Productions, Hicks is an artist on the roster for hip-hop collective Grid Squid Entertainment. In 2017, she was awarded the San Marcos Arts Commission Grant for her monthly event series, SMTX Ripple Market, which provided performance and exhibit opportunities to women, POC, and those identified as LGBTQ-IA over the course of 36+ local and regional events. The 2009 Grand Slam Champion of the Austin Poetry Slam, she was a member of the 2008 Neo Soul Poetry Slam Team and won several individual regional competitions. Her visual art has been exhibited in the Texas State University Gallery of the Common Experience, Insomnia Gallery in Houston, Dahlia’s Gallery in San Marcos, Patio Dolcetto in San Marcos, and featured in Five:2:One print magazine.