About

Long BIO

Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. is a Black poet and essayist. Originally from Chicago, she moved to Alabama for six years, where she received both her Bachelor’s degree in English and her Master’s degree in English (Creative Writing concentration) from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Taylor currently lives in Cincinnati, where she completed her Ph.D in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Cincinnati. She is also a Features Editor for The Rumpus, an Editorial Advisor for Jackleg Press, an Editorial Board Member for Beloit Poetry Journal, and a Poetry Editor-at-Large for Texas Review Press.

She has received five Pushcart and six Best of the Net nominations, and has won a Best Microfiction Award. She is the 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway Contest, the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets, and the 2021 Adrienne Rich Poetry Award. She was a finalist for the 2020 Frontier OPEN Prize, an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Ninth Letter Literary Award in Poetry, an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest, and a semifinalist for the 2023 Crab Creek Poetry Prize. She was also a 2023-24 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Fellow.

She is the author of two chapbooks: Bloodwarm, from Variant Lit (2021), and Shutter from Madhouse Press (2022). Her debut full-length poetry collection, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times (2023) Soft Skull Press, was a USA Today Bestseller, and won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and was named a 2024 Honor Book for Best Poetry by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her second poetry collection, Resting Bitch Face, is forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in August 2025 and is a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is also a coeditor of both The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol X: Alabama, published with Texas Review Press, and Poemhood: Our Black Revival a YA anthology surrounding Black folklore from HarperCollins.

Shorter Bio

Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a Features Editor for The Rumpus, an Editorial Advisor for Jackleg Press, a member of the Beloit Poetry Journal Editorial Board, and a Poetry Editor-at-Large for Texas Review Press. Her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her second full-length, Resting Bitch Face, is forthcoming in August 2025 and is a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is also a coeditor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol X: Alabama, from Texas Review Press, and Poemhood: Our Black Revival, a YA anthology from HarperCollins.