HE-bert or AY-bair (not HER-bert)

photo by Molly Meller-Hebert (2024)

Katie Hébert (she/they) is a white, queer, small/mid-fat, neurodivergent poet, writer, and aspiring educator. Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, She holds a B.A. in English and Women's & Gender Studies from SUNY Oneonta. While they have been writing poetry well into their childhood, Katie found spoken word in high school and has fallen in love with it ever since. Her writing centers narrative healing, focusing on themes of grief and loss, home and location, family, mental health, and the multi-faceted relationship with self and identity, among other topics. Katie writes as a way of making sense of the world around them and the situation they’re in, working to find solace and healing. She uses storytelling to build community, and hopes her writing makes someone else feel less alone. 

Katie has competed and performed at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) from 2017-2019 in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Houston while representing SUNY Oneonta. They have also performed at venues across New York State and the Northeast, including NYU and the Heath Gallery, and at events through SUNY Oneonta such as the Big O Poetry Slam, the GSRC, and various other features. Katie is an alum of The Heart Of It, a retreat created by poet and teaching artist Desireé Dallagiacomo. Katie has been a frequent community member of Undercurrent, connecting with more poets and writers globally through Dallagiacomo’s creative spaces and writing courses since 2020. A Best of the Net nominee, Katie's work is published in Gnashing Teeth Publishing, Ink & Marrow Lit, Preposition: The Undercurrent Anthology, Ayaskala Literary Magazine, Turnpike Magazine, and elsewhere, as well as The State Times, where she was a Staff Writer.

Currently, Katie is pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Manhattanville University, where they are also a Graduate Teaching Fellow. She is working on two manuscripts and a newsletter. Katie currently lives in southern Connecticut, where her city-kid self is constantly amazed by all the wildlife that aren’t pigeons and rats. (She still loves the pigeons, though).