Zoë Hitzel
In Fall of ‘21, our creative nonfiction mentor was Zoë Hitzel (she/her), a poet, essayist, and educator who writes about her trans experiences. She reads tarot professionally, plays in a blues band, Deadwood, and makes tea every morning for her girlfriend in Columbia, Missouri. She earned her MA in Creative Writing studying poetry at Northern Arizona University and her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Oregon State University. Her writing has appeared in Uproot, The Fourth River, Blue Lyra Review, entropy, and elsewhere. She has taught English as a lecturer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and will be the Fall 2019 Ofstad Writer in Residence at Truman State University. She has edited various literary publications, most recently Best of the Net. Otherwise, Hitzel is a citizen of the wind, currently stalled over Missouri. To fund her ongoing transition, she freelances professionally as a writer and editor, scores standardized tests in multiple languages, reads tarot cards, and drums in the blues band, Deadwood.
Zoë has also participated in past residencies: In Fall of ‘21, she offered a reading with Jennifer Espinoza and Daniel M. Lavery, a generative workshop involving Tarot, and also participated in a panel with Jennifer Espinoza and Daniel M. Lavery, moderated by Ben McClendon).
