Joshua Merchant (THEY/THEM/THEIRS) is a Black Queer native of East Oakland exploring what it means to be human as an intersectional being. A lot of what they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of what it means to be a “Delectable Negro” in a world with an insatiable appetite for Blackness and the many ways we show up spiritually, mentally, and physically. They address the countless exaggerations of white fantasy as a means of humanizing the Black Queer experience through a lens only someone who grew up ashy and yet a teardrop slicker than the average lesson any Corner-Store-Prophet could provide. They've had the honor to witness their work being held and understood in literary journals such as 580Split, Roi Fianeant, Snow Flake Magazine, Corporeal, Anvil Tongue, Verum Literary Press, Ice Floe Press, Hotazel Review, MORIA and elsewhere. They have also received the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for poetry and was nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net Poetry Award by Spare Parts Lit. You can connect with them via instagram @blacktarstunning.
Joshua Merchant (THEY/THEM/THEIRS) is a Black Queer native of East Oakland exploring what it means to be human as an intersectional being. A lot of what they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of what it means to be a “Delectable Negro” in a world with an insatiable appetite for Blackness and the many ways we show up spiritually, mentally, and physically. They address the countless exaggerations of white fantasy as a means of humanizing the Black Queer experience through a lens only someone who grew up ashy and yet a teardrop slicker than the average lesson any Corner-Store-Prophet could provide. They've had the honor to witness their work being held and understood in literary journals such as 580Split, Roi Fianeant, Snow Flake Magazine, Corporeal, Anvil Tongue, Verum Literary Press, Ice Floe Press, Hotazel Review, MORIA and elsewhere. They have also received the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for poetry and was nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net Poetry Award by Spare Parts Lit. You can connect with them via instagram @blacktarstunning.
