A Black trans woman with disabilities, Taiwana Shambley is a full-time writer & award-winning teaching artist from St. Paul’s North End neighborhood. Based in Minneapolis, and guided by political anger and black radical tradition, Taiwana’s mission is to empower queer, trans, and disabled youth voices, through both her writing and by facilitating storytelling skills for others. Taiwana is a 2023 Loft/MISA Excellence in Teaching Fellow, a 2023 Minnesota Colleges & Universities Write Like Us Mentor, and you might’ve seen her face on the cover of Minnesota Women’s Press. Her fiction has been recognized with grants from the Loft Literary Center, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. She is currently at work on her debut novel, the first of a New Adult series, that explores the story of an angry and disabled girl who leads a violent movement whilst in conflict with her mother, the first Black and first woman governor of Minnesota. Sign up for her mailing list below for updates on her forthcoming novel I Can Be Free Yesterday and chapbook Welcome to Maryland Avenue and Other Angry Black Girl Stories.

A graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts Program at Antioch University Los Angeles, she is a 2021 graduate of Augsburg University in English and African American Studies, where as part of a coalition of students, faculty, and staff she co-led the creation of the school’s first ethnic studies department. She’s also worked as the Inaugural Open Road Fund Program Associate for Nexus Community Partners and the Inaugural End Youth Prisons MN Campaign Lead for the Legal Rights Center.