Shakeema Smalls is from Georgetown, South Carolina.  Her work has been published in a variety of outlets including Blackberry: A Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, Honey Literary, voicemail poems, Rootwork Journal, Radius Lit, Free Black Space, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Rigorous, and A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, among others. She was a Tin House 2022 Winter Workshop participant and a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow.