Lauren L. Wheeler writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and what happens when they rub up against each other. A recovering slam poet, she twice competed at the National Poetry Slam and has featured at Cornell University, where she studied English Literature, as well as in Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Lauren is the author of the poetry collection In Between Places (Nomadic Press, 2022). Her work has appeared online and in print in such publications as PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, and the pop-culture website Black Nerd Problems.

Lauren also has spent most of the last two decades working in the tech industry as a producer, program manager, product manager — all the jobs that start with a P. She’s worked on video games (notably The Sims and Star Wars:  The Old Republic), consumer robots (Cozmo and Anki Overdrive), and recently, self-driving cars at Cruise. Lauren also has experience in marketing, political organizing and communications, and is a proud Arena Summit alum.

Lauren lives with her kid, spouse, and two brown dogs in West Oakland, California, also known as xučyun (Huichin), the unceded ancestral territory of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people. She believes in paying her taxes.

You can find her doomscrolling on Twitter as @fightingwords and posting ocular proof on Instagram at @fightingw0rds.