Shelly Nation

Shelly Nation has been writing and performing poetry in Chicago for nearly twenty years. She occasionally hosts for Wordslingers, a poetry radio show out of Loyola University, and has had poems published in the online poetry magazine why vandalism? and Chicago’s Hammers magazine (no longer in print). Shelly writes, “I have been teaching for sixteen years for the Chicago Public School system. In 1995, my doctor put me on Cytoxin to control my Lupus, ending in my inability to have children. Throughout these past few years, I have dealt with this sadness through my writing and the joys I have experienced with my students. Teaching has allowed me the opportunity to mother and embrace other people’s children. For that, I am eternally grateful.”