2018 Capturing Fire Slam Champion
Mia S. Willis is a 23-year-old Black poet and teaching artist from Charlotte, North Carolina. Their work has been featured by or is forthcoming in Curating Alexandria, WORDPEACE, Peculiar, Foothill, Button Poetry, and Slamfind. Mia is a recipient of the 2018 Foothill Editors’ Prize for their poem “hecatomb,” which was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. They ranked fourth out of 96 femme poets at the 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam, placed fifth out of 150 poets at the 2018 Southern Fried Poetry Slam, and won the 2018 Capturing Fire Slam. Mia was also a member of Tender Bitch, the winning team at the 2018 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam Tournament. Thus far in 2019, they have served as the Tournament Director for the inaugural New South Poetry Conference, a regional slam tournament and workshop series sponsored by Agnes Scott College for collegiate teams. Mia was recently named the Tournament Coordinator for the 2019 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam Tournament, a community-run poetry competition and festival curated for feminine folx. Their debut poetry collection, monster house., was the 2018 winner of the Cave Canem Foundation’s Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and will be published by Jai Alai Books in April 2019. Connect with Mia on Facebook and Twitter (@poetinthehat).
Capturing Fire 