—Bio—

{for print}

Shayla Lawson is the author of A SPEED EDUCATION IN HUMAN BEING, PANTONE, I THINK I’M READY TO SEE FRANK OCEAN, THIS IS MAJOR: NOTES ON DIANA ROSS, DARK GIRLS & BEING DOPE (Harper Perennial, 2020) and HOW TO LIVE FREE IN A DANGEROUS WORLD: A DECOLONIAL MEMOIR (Tiny Reparations, 2024). They have written for Bustle, Romper, Salon, Tin House, PAPER, ESPN, Salon, Guernica, Vulture, The Cut and New York Magazine, been awarded fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Artist Colony, and a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle and LAMBDA Literary Award. They’re from Lexington, Kentucky but they’ve lived everywhere.