Shante´ is a woman.  She is stylish.  She is patient.  She is consumed with adding visual imagery to the world.  Her skin is black and her hair is thick.  She is determined.  She loves denim.  She is sometimes too forward.  Shante' is a lover--- she loves love and knows that it is the answer.  She believes in the voice of the divine and finds peace in the quiet.  She and good literature are best friends.  Her energy is contagious.  She exaggerates for humor’s sake.  She will offer her heart.  She prefers the sunlight and the ocean’s breeze.  She is like a tree--- strong and protective.  She has a passion for archiving because she yearns to honor memory.  She contorts herself like a bird, feet forward but looking back, so as to never forget where she came from.  She is an artist.  She tells stories.

Shante´ Cozier is an artist who believes in the power of stories.  She received a B.S. in Visual Arts from SUNY New Paltz where she concentrated in Photography and minored in Black Studies.  She also received her MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, where she focused on the art of short stories and prose poetry.  She is an alum of the 2015 USA Callaloo Writing Workshop at Brown University.  As well, she has taken writing workshops at New York University.  She has also presented her work at readings and conferences including the 2016 Medgar Ever’s Black Writers Conference.  Cozier is a New York Writers Coalition workshop facilitator, where she leads free writing workshops throughout Brooklyn, NY including Brooklyn East Collegiate Middle School, Ingersoll Community Center and St. Alban’s Church in Canarsie.  She is the winner of the 2015 ND/SA Chapbook prize for her first chapbook of poetry entitled Sometimes Angels.  She is currently finishing her first full-length collection of short stories, entitled The Hardest Thing is To Know.