Bianca Lynne Spriggs

Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem Fellow, Bianca Lynne Spriggs, is a multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, Kentucky. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky, she holds degrees from Transylvania University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Named as one of the Top 30 Performance Poets in the country by The Root, Bianca is the recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry, multiple Artist Enrichment and Arts Meets Activism grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. Bianca is the author of Kaffir Lily (Wind Publications, 2010), How Swallowtails Become Dragons (Accents Publishing, 2011), Call Her By Her Name (Northwestern University Press, 2016), and the forthcoming, The Galaxy Is a Dance Floor (Argos Books, 2016), as well as the co-editor for Circe’s Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women (Accents Publishing, 2016) and Undead: Ghouls, Ghosts, and More (Apex Publications, 2017). Her work may be found in numerous journals and anthologies, including New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writings (Jesse Stuart Foundation), America! What’s My Name?! (Wind Publications), Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature (Sarabande), Fan Phenomena: Star Trek  (Intellect Books), The Louisville Review, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion Union Station Magazine, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, Tidal Basin Review, Muzzle, Caduceus, Alehouse, Reverie, Appalachian Heritage Magazine, Still: The Journal, Duende, Drunken Boat, Oxford American, and others. Bianca is the Literary Arts Liaison for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, creator and program director for The SwallowTale Project: Creative Writing for Incarcerated Women, as well as the Managing Editor for pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture and Poetry Editor for Apex Magazine.