Faylita Hicks

Faylita Hicks is a Black, Queer writer, mobile photographer, performance and Hip-Hop artist from San Marcos, TX. She was the 2009 Grand Slam Champion of the Austin Poetry Slam. Her manuscript was a finalist in the 2016 Write Bloody Book Contest and 2012 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest. In 2015, she released her first Hip Hop EP, Collision City. In 2018, she was an inaugural Open Mouth Readings Writing Retreat participant and was awarded a Sundress Academy for the Arts Residency.

Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Glass Poetry Press, Kweli Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue Ink & Nebula, American Poetry Journal, Yes Poetry and others. Her visual art has been exhibited in the Texas State University Common Experience Gallery, Insomnia Art Gallery (Houston, X), Dahlia Woods Gallery and featured in Five:2:One Art & Literary print magazine.

She is the founder and Creative Director of Arrondi Creative Productions and an artist on the roster for Hip-Hop Collective Grid Squid Entertainment. In 2017, she was awarded the San Marcos Arts Commission Grant for her monthly event series, SMTX Ripple Market which provided performance and exhibit opportunities to Women, POC and those identified as LGBQ-IA.

She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada College’s Low Residency program and received her Bachelor’s Degree from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX.

Philosophy:

I consider it my job to document not only my experience but the experiences of others through my visual and literary work. I use my resources and creative stamina to question the audacity of my existence as an educated, queer woman of color in a world that has historically denied my value.

Primary Interests:

I am drawn to the issues of Human Trafficking, Body Positivity, Sex Positivity, Queer Rhetoric, Police Brutality, Afro-futurism, Black Spirituality, Wellness, Education in Underserved Communities, Womanist Issues and others.

Creative Mission:

My desire is to emulate the complexity of the modern woman of color in all my work. Too often, women of color are cast as one dimensional characters in everything from visual art to cinema, even in the corporate context or local community. As a poet, I take special care to represent myself honestly, as one who does not necessarily exemplify the trope of a Black woman but exist as its variance. In my work, I try to exemplify the light that exists in the darkness.