Ian-Khara Ellasante (they/them) is a Black, queer, trans-nonbinary poet and cultural studies scholar. Winner of the 49th New Millenium Award for Poetry, Ian-Khara’s poems have appeared in The Feminist Wire, The Volta: Evening Will Come, Hinchas de Poesía, cur.ren.cy, and elsewhere. With abiding affection for their hometown of Memphis, Ian-Khara has also loved living and writing in Tucson, Brooklyn, and most recently, in southern Maine, where they are an Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Bates College.

In their ongoing “Diana” series, Diana (i.e., one of many names for a goddess of the moon, of womanhood, of the hunt) serves as an ambiguous proxy, representing both the narrator’s cherished womanhood and their changing relationship to their womanhood as a trans/nonbinary person. In these poems, Diana also represents a woman who, bearing witness to these social and physical transitions, is changing in her relationship to the narrator. These poems integrate creative production with an intervention in the field of transgender studies by expanding notions of what trans* is and what trans* can do; what gender and identity can be, in ways that are not just possible, but that are actual.