FAYLITA HICKS (she/they) is a queer writer, interdisciplinary artist, spiritual practitioner, and cultural strategist working at the crossroads of social justice and spirituality, where creative endeavors become a catalyst for significant change and profound connection within the community.

Born in Gardena, California, and raised in Central Texas, Hicks uses a multimodal approach to integrate transformative justice theory and spiritual acumen into their creative practice to better advocate for marginalized people who make up our global majority. Utilizing personal narratives that translate the tangible impacts of contemporary and historical legislation for the individual, Hicks expands our definition of the “personal” and the “political.”

The scope of Hicks’ work spans multiple literary genres including poetry, nonfiction, and drama; spoken word and theatric performances; digital photography and digital collage; time-based media; found object assemblage and large-scale installation—all of which explores themes such as carceral systems, life and death, queerness, empowerment, identity, quantum philosophy, artificial intelligence, spirituality, memory, and ecopoetics.

The author of two poetry collections, A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024), a finalist for the 2024 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Award, and HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, they are currently working on their debut memoir-in-essays about their incarceration, A Body of Wild Light: The Fall and Rise of An American Poet (Haymarket Books).

A 2024 Grammy-nominee, a 2022 Art for Justice Fund Grantee, and the winner of the 2020 Sappho Poetry Award and the Best of Net Prize for Poetry, Hicks was a 2023 Envisioning Justice Grantee with Illinois Humanities, a 2021 Shearing Fellow with Black Mountain Institute, a 2021 Artivism fellow with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, a 2021 Poet-in-Residence with Civil Rights Corps, and a 2020 Right of Return Fellow with the Center for Art and Advocacy, amongst others. They were recently named a 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Living Legacy Honoree and a shortlist finalist in Chicago Reader’s 2024 Best of Chicago Poets category.

Hicks currently serves as Chair of the Board for The Guild Literary Complex (2024-2026), Core Faculty member with the Stories Matter Foundation’s StoryStudio (2025-2027), adjunct faculty with the University of Reno’s Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Incline Village (2022-Present), Alumni Consultant at the Center for Art and Advocacy (2023-Present), and as a District Advocate, Grammy U Mentor, and Songwriting and Composers Committee member as a voting member of the Recording Academy (2021-Present).

Their poetry, essays, and digital art have been featured in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Poetry Magazine, Slate, Split This Rock, Texas Observer, The Slowdown Podcast, and Yale Review, amongst others.

Several of their op-eds were a part of Mano Amiga’s successful 2019-2020 campaign to change citation-based policy in San Marcos, Texas, and their text-based art has been featured in Art At A Time Like This and Save Art Spaces 8 x 5 Billboard exhibits in Miami and Houston (2023, 2024), and Ford Foundation’s No Justice Without Love Group Exhibit (2023) in New York.

Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary 45 Days in a Texas Jail, and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem.