Originally from Minnesota, Tegan has made home at Nottingham Co-operative in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Lalo Loor Dry Forest Reserve along the Pacific coast of Ecuador, in the historic Orange Gentleman of Ames, Iowa, along the banks of the Rhône river in Lyon, France, and in a solar-powered hut on Namdrik Atoll of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Like Proginoskes, she is a queer namer of the universe. A farmer-poet, local spoken-word battle champ, and an artist-in-residence at Camp Indigo Point. Whether magical realist fiction, investigative journalism, experimental poetry, or mixed media collage, her work explores the intersections of memory and accountability.
She has offered undergraduate composition and creative writing classes, taught ESL and environmental science with tiny humans and adults, facilitated therapeutic creative workshops for the National Alliance for Mental Illness of Central Iowa, worked with young folks in Madison’s public high schools and at Ames’ Rosedale Shelter, and served as a legal advocate for survivors of violence in Dane County, Wisconsin. Currently, she is the Systems Change Coordinator for End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, where she advocates for survivor-centered policy change & transformative justice, and serves on the MMIW Task Force.
They love: Lake Superior and the North Coast; volunteer dill and flowering perennials; fresh fish and wild blueberries; hiking near & snorkeling in large bodies of salt water; horse therapy; collecting artifacts for their ever-expanding wunderkammer; cooking for loved ones; paradigms, tangents, and queer, healing-centered emergent strategy.
Things We Found When the Water Went Down, her debut novel, is available from Catapult Co. She is a graduate of the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University. Contact her at tegannia [at] gmail [dot] com.
tegan | nia | swanson 