Aaron Talley is a writer, teacher, and activist who hails from Detroit, MI.

He grew up in a working class family which struggled with mental illness long before language around it was popularized on social media. These childhood experiences inform much of his work.

He holds a BA in English Language and Literature, and a Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) from the University of Chicago. While completing his masters, he became a founding member of the Black Youth Project 100, which was started under the leadership of UChicago scholar Cathy Cohen. His community organizing through BYP100 helped inform much of the feminist intersectional framework that applies to his worldview and writing.

He currently teaches middle school on Chicago’s South Side. Throughout his teaching career, he has published articles which focus on race, gender, and sexuality, and he is particularly passionate about policies retaining teachers of of color. In 2016, he was selected to be on the inaugural Chicago Teacher’s Advisory Council, where he did research on the aforementioned topic, and which culminated in a city-wide teacher mentorship program, on which he served as a mentor. In 2018, he became a Fund For Teachers Fellow, where he was selected to receive grant funding to visit Japan and develop curriculum to teach an anime elective geared towards students of color. His writing and thinking on education has been featured in South Side Weekly, Education Post, NPR, and The Nation.

In 2017, Aaron became a Voices of Our Nations Arts Fellow (VONA), where he studied speculative fiction under Tananarive Due. This opportunity helped spearhead his current manuscript, a young adult novel which puts an speculative spin on adolescent mental health. He believes that the next wave of progressive educational policies will integrate the mental health needs of children, and he hopes his work will help with this endeavor.

His passion for mental health, speculative fiction, and writing finds synergy in his spirituality. He has spent the last five years studying tarot/astrology and doing readings for clients. In 2020, he had the opportunity to write about tarot as an Interfaith Racial Equity Fellow for the Interfaith America Youth Core.

When not writing, reading, or teaching, or you can find him watching anime or playing the latest Japanese RPG. He is represented by Jas Perry of KT Literary.

Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @Talley_Marked.