Jessica Mehta, PhD, is an Aniyunwiya (Cherokee Nation) poet, artist, and scholar whose inter/multi/anti-disciplinary work spans books, exhibitions, and cross-genre installations. Born in the northwest region of Turtle Island (Oregon), her practice—described as avant-garde conceptualism—centers space, place, decolonization, and Indigenization. Her forthcoming projects include the poetry collection [sp]RED (Sundress Publications, 2026), which Indigenizes the tarot, and her horror story “Miss Cherokee Princess 1996” will appear in the sequel to the bestselling Indigenous horror anthology Never Whistle at Night: Back for Blood (Vintage/Penguin Random House, 2026).
Her scholarly work builds on her doctoral research into female poetry and eating disorders, extending to contemporary Indigenous and Indigiqueer poetics. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Bengaluru, India, she created the first credit-based generative poetry workshop for doctoral candidates and curated a community anthology of Indian poetry. She has also been a Visiting Fellow at several other institutes such as the University of Notre Dame, the British Library in London, and the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana.
Jessica’s poetry and fiction have received numerous awards, including the 2025 Indigenous Fiction Prize from Chapter House at the Institute for American Indian Arts as judged by Debra Magpie Earling for her short horror story “Poached,” she was an Oregon Book Awards finalist for When We Talk of Stolen Sisters (2021), received the Birdy Prize for Selected Poems: 2000–2020, and has been awarded multiple honors for her novel The Wrong Kind of Indian. Her work has been exhibited internationally, with residencies at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the Bayard Rustin AiR in New York, and the Crazy Horse Memorial.
She is also a certified yoga teacher (ERYT-500®) and trainer with extensive specializations, and when not writing or creating, she can be found traveling, antiquing, or practicing a hybrid ritual routine of yoga, tarot, ceremony, and medicine. Learn more at www.thischerokeerose.com.