Baker Artist Portfolios

Chrissy Stegman is a Baltimore native whose poetry and fiction explore the intersections of generational trauma, resilience, domestic life, and imagination. Her work has appeared in places such as Rattle (Editor’s Choice), River Heron Review (Pushcart Prize nominee), Gargoyle Magazine, One Art, UCity Review (Featured Poet), Okay Donkey, Gone Lawn, BULL, Stone Circle Review, Red Ogre Review, Blue Heron Review (Best of the Net nominee), Serotonin Press, and Little Patuxent Review, among others.

Her debut chapbook, Somewhere, Someone Is Forgetting You (Alien Buddha Press, 2025), explores grief, fractured family systems, and surreal domesticity. Her poems “The Argyle” (Best of the Net, indicating BOTN, 2025) and “The Disappointed Housewife” (Pushcart Prize nominee, 2025) further reflect her interest in lyric intensity, dark humor, and the emotional architectures of survival. She is the winner of the 2025 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Award. Her work has received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Disquiet Poetry Prize and awarded the Patricia Bibby Poetry Scholarship at Idyllwild Arts. Chrissy is a 2025 Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Fellow and an upcoming 2026 resident at the Château d’Orquevaux Artists & Writers Residency.

Her writing is often described as lyric, surreal, and darkly humorous, drawing from Appalachian family history, maternal experience, and the emotional architectures of survival. While her work spans genres, she is particularly drawn to what she calls gothic escapism: imaginative narratives that confront harm while insisting on repair.

Chrissy’s writing life began in community advocacy and editing as a braillist for the Maryland School for the Blind, where she created accessible literary materials for non-sighted readers. She later transitioned into nonprofit leadership and currently serves as Director of Grants and Special Projects for a domestic violence organization in Delaware. She is also the Grants Coordinator for the Maryland Writers’ Association, supporting literary programming and funding initiatives across the state. Her professional work with trauma survivors and literary organizations continues to inform the ethical and emotional stakes of her writing.

She lives in Baltimore with her husband and five children, and spends her off-hours hiking, birdwatching, and daydreaming about summer.