Allison Blevins is a queer disabled writer. She received her MA at Pittsburg State University and MFA at Queens University of Charlotte. She is a Lecturer for the Women's Studies Program at Pittsburg State University. She is also a poetry and nonfiction mentor at Middle Tennessee State University. Her work has appeared in such journals as Brevity, Mid-American Review, the minnesota review, and Raleigh Review.
She is the author of the collections Where Will We Live if the House Burns Down? (Persea Books, forthcoming), Cataloguing Pain (YesYes Books, 2023), Handbook for the Newly Disabled, A Lyric Memoir (BlazeVox, 2022), and Slowly/Suddenly (VA Press, 2021). She is the author of the chapbooks Keeping Up (Seven Kitchens Press, forthcoming), Susurration (Blue Lyra Press, 2019), Letters to Joan (Lithic Press, 2019), and A Season for Speaking (Seven Kitchens Press, 2019). Allison is also the co-author of two collaborative chapbooks with the poet Josh Davis: fiery poppies bruising their own throats (Glass Lyre Press, 2023) and Chorus for the Kill (Seven Kitchens Press, 2022).
Cataloguing Pain was named one of the best collections of 2023 by Ms. Magazine and was a finalist for the 2023 Julie Suk Award from Jacar Press. In 2022, Allison won the Laux/Millar Poetry Prize from Raleigh Review. In 2023, she won the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books. She was also the 2nd place winner of Exposition Review’s 2024 Persona Contest.
Allison has been nominated for the Stephen Meats Poetry Prize, the Stanley Hank Memorial Prize, the Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. She has been a Finalist and Honorable Mention for the Geri Digiorno Prize and an Honorable Mention for the Barthelme Prize and the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize. She has also been a Finalist for the Pamet River Prize, the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize, the Laux/Millar Poetry Prize, the Cowles Poetry Book Prize, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Glass Chapbook Series, the Oscar Wilde Award, the Creative Nonfiction Literary Awards from Ninth Letter, and the Moon City Poetry Award.
Allison formerly served as the Poetry Editor at Literary Mama and the Executive Editor at the museum of americana. She is the founder and Director of Small Harbor Publishing. She lives in Minnesota with her spouse and three children.