Mia S. Willis is a Black performance poet from Charlotte, North Carolina. Their work has been featured by or is forthcoming in FreezeRay, Curating Alexandria, WORDPEACE, Peculiar, Foothill, Button Poetry, and Slamfind. Mia was the recipient of the 2018 Foothill Editors’ Prize for their poem “hecatomb,” which was subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets 2018. They ranked fourth out of 96 femme poets at the 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam and placed fifth out of 150 poets at the 2018 Southern Fried Poetry Slam. Mia was a member of Tender Bitch, the winning team at the 2018 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam Tournament, and they are the first two-time Capturing Fire Slam Champion (2018, 2019). Mia was also named a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry as well as the 2019 Young Artist Fellow at ChaShaMa’s ChaNorth residency in Pine Plains, NY. Their debut poetry collection, monster house., was the 2018 winner of the Cave Canem Foundation’s Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and is available now with Jai-Alai Books. Connect with Mia on Facebook and Twitter (@poetinthehat).
