Chelsea Harlan is a writer based in Appalachian Virginia, where she was born and raised. Her work considers the magnificent ordinariness of being alive, the stories that shape our personal mythologies, and how we carry and share them. She is the author of Bright Shade, winner of the 2022 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, selected by Jericho Brown. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from American Poetry Review, Southeast Review, Shenandoah, the Southern Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere.
She received a B.A. from Bennington College and an M.F.A. from CUNY Brooklyn College, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. She is the Assistant Director of a small arts and cultural center, and she serves as a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Hollins University.
While at MacDowell, she worked on her second book of poems, drawn from her experience working numerous odd jobs, grappling with sobriety, and loosely inspired by the 15th century book of hours, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.
Portrait by Harrison Siegel
