Cassandra Myers (My’z)

“Cassandra Myers offers us literature as strategy. If we uphold the idea that change and liberation requires a diversity of tactics, then we can look to Myers’ diverse and capacious modes of inquiry — what the author themself calls a “kaleidoscopic approach.” Lyric and collage essays, free verse and formal poetry, speculative memoir, divine mathematics and patterns, South Asian diasporic narratives, trauma-informed spoken word, queer and disability theory, and other craft experiments band together to create their changemaking and growing body-of-work. I began my own writing and publishing career during an era of significant “othering” — when writers with under-represented identities or modes of cultural production were urged to edit our work to be more digestible for the so-called average book buyer. I was drawn to Myers’ work for its ability to defy digestibility and instead advance nuance and vital complexity. I look forward to witnessing the evolution of their writing and the impact they will surely continue to have in the larger literary sphere. ”—2026 Rising Star Selector Amber Dawn