Jessica Mehta

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a multi-award-winning Aniyunwiya Two-Spirit, queer interdisciplinary author and artist. Born and raised in what colonizers dub Oregon and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, space, place, and ancestry inform her work. She is currently preparing for her Fulbright U.S. Scholar award in Bangalore, India as well as her Ucross residency in Wyoming where she is serving as the 2021 autumn Native American visual artist in residence. Currently, Jessica is a Rethink Outside fellow focusing on engaging with good medicine in the Pacific Northwest outdoors. She is currently serving as the poet in residence at Hugo House, Seattle, and is the post-graduate research representative at the Centre for Victorian Studies in Exeter, England. She is the first Native American to serve in these roles.

Jessica is a current GLEAN artist and a recent recipient of the Jordan Schnitzer Black Lives Matter Grant. She is preparing for exhibitions for both appointments, scheduled for early 2022. She also had three books released in the past year, including When We Talk of Stolen Sisters (Not a Pipe Publishing), Selected Poems: 2000 – 2020 (Meadowlark Books and winner of the national annual Birdy Prize), and Antipodes (New Rivers Press).

Learn more about Jessica at her website, www.thischerokeerose.com, where you will find the Emmy award winning documentary on her life and work from Osiyo Television.