Taneesh Kaur is an award-winning, first-generation Punjabi teaching artist based in San Francisco. She is a social justice advocate who collaborates with nature to understand and dismantle systems of mental and physical oppression. Her scholarly work has been published in Discourse Studies, where she is also a peer reviewer for the journal. Her creative writing won the 2025 SFF/Nomadic Literary Award for fiction, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has been supported by Kearny Street Workshop and Center for Cultural Innovation. Her visual art has been shown in galleries throughout California, also receiving praise from the International Luxembourg Art Prize for 2022 and 2023. Her full-length collection, Thawing: A Poetic Memoir, was released in 2024 from Collapse Press. Taneesh has taught creative writing for several years, including with University of San Francisco and 826 Valencia. She has a Master's in Linguistics from San Francisco State University, with training abroad in Mexico and Chile, and an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Se habla español.