Kylan Tatum

Kylan Ming Tatum is a poet, multidisciplinary artist, and youth organizer based in New York City. Across literary and interdisciplinary forms, their work explores the intersections of queer life, performance, and emerging technologies. Their poetry and fiction appear in Diode Poetry Journal, Poetry Online, Rust & Moth, the Center for Fiction, and elsewhere.

They earned an MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oxford and graduated Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors in Studies of Women, Gender, Sexuality and Theater, Dance, and Media from Harvard University, where they were a Harvard Associate Fellow of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and a two-time Ethnicity, Migration, Rights Scholar.

Beyond the page, Tatum has worked with nonprofit, legal, and civic organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, TED Conferences, REFORM Alliance, and Pantect. For their work advancing healthcare equity and racial justice, they received the 2021 Generational Leadership Award from Mercer Street Friends. They have been quoted or featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Nation, Teen Vogue, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, the Harvard Gazette, and other national outlets.

A classically trained pianist, Tatum has received more than twenty state, national, and international awards, with performances at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Columbia University, Westminster Choir College, and Liederkranz Concert Hall. They have also directed, produced, or advised productions of The Lion King, Constellations, and Spring Awakening, as well as the student originals Speechless, Tell Me About Yourself, Be Cozy, and The Professor's Dilemma.

Tatum serves as a Poetry Reader and Poetry Mentor for The Adroit Journal. Their mentees have earned recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the National YoungArts Foundation, the National Student Poets Program, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, and Regional Youth Poet Laureate programs, with students matriculating to institutions including Yale University and Stanford University.