Tonya C. Hegamin, MFA (she/her/hers), is a queer, BIWOC award winning novelist, essayist and poet. She has been featured in several magazines and journals including Obsidian, Northern New England Review, Journal of Creative Writing Studies, Ebony, Essence and Fortune. She serves on the board for the CSOM Narrative Medicine Track of Distinction. Tonya is a patient advocate focused on intersectional experiences of chronic illness and (dis)ability. She is an Associate Professor at CUNY Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, NY.