This month’s episode of the Spoken Series features Portland local, Stephanie Adams-Santos sharing her poem, “Hermanxs.” Check out her (immensely impressive) bio below and visit her website, ObscuroBeach.com, for more background on her vast talents and extensive accomplishments.

Stephanie Adams-Santos is a queer Guatemalan-American poet, writer and mystic from Portland, Oregon. Her new full-length poetry collection, Swarm Queen’s Crown, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, the world’s most prestigious literary award which celebrates excellence in LGBTQ publishing and voices. She is also the author of several chapbooks: Total Memory (Finishing Line Press) and Little Fugues (Sola Books); her award-winning chapbook The Sundering was selected by Linda Gregg for an Academy of American Poets New York Chapbook Fellowship. Stephanie has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets, and she was a finalist for the Corporeal Voices “THE VOICE IS A MUSCLE” Fellowship for writers of color. Her work has appeared in many print and online journals and magazines, including Guernica, The Boston Review, Orion Magazine, Nailed, Noble Gas Quarterly, and others. A ritualized production of Stephanie’s work was featured at Poetry Press Week in Portland, OR, and she is the recipient of a 2016 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship. Stephanie earned an MFA in Poetry at Columbia University School of the Arts, and a BA in English at Stanford University. She is the founder of Tarot Obscuro and Ojo de la Selva Press. She teaches poetry at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Literary Arts, and Portland Community College.

Wow. What an honor it is to have hosted Stephanie at the festival last August. We look forward to hearing (and reading) what’s next for her!