about

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Gideon Young is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective, the North Carolina Haiku Society, the North Carolina Writers Conference, and the Orange County Arts Commission Advisory Board.

Find his work in Acorn, Backbone Press, Callaloo, Carve Magazine, Duality, Eucalypt, first frost, frogpond, Haibun Today, Haiku Page, hedgerow, The Heron’s Nest, The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, JUXTA, Kingfisher, The Long River Review, Modern Haiku, North Carolina Literary Review, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Our State Magazine, Ribbons, Spillway, The Pan Haiku Review, Presence, Sons and Daughters Literary Journal, Valley Voices, Wales Haiku Journal, WALTER Magazine, The White Elephant, and Wild Plum Haiku, among others.

Gideon’s work is anthologized in All the Songs We Sing, Black Fire—This Time: Volume 2, Memento: An Anthology of Poems on Grief, The Elizabeth Keckley Reader: A Determined Life, Vol. II, The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku (2023), and Tea All The Time It Takes, The Unexpected Weight, They Gave Us Life: Celebrating Mothers, Fathers & Others in Haiku, and World Enough Writers Coffee Anthology, among others.

Gideon’s poetry has been selected for the 2025 National Baseball Poetry Festival, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards, and inclusion in the Orison Anthology. He received 2nd place in the 2020 James Applewhite Poetry Prize for kwansaba crown. His poetry is included in Best Spiritual Literature 2022 (Orison Books). His haiku have been translated into French. His poetry has been displayed at Eno Mill Gallery in Hillsborough and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Gideon’s debut haiku collection my hands full of light was published by Backbone Press, Spring 2021, and nominated for the Roanoke-Chowan Award. He is co-author of One Window’s Light: A Collection of Haiku, published by Unicorn Press, 2017, winner of the Haiku Society of America Merit Award for Best Anthology.

Gideon is the author of Prince Rivers: A Leader for Justice, a biography, Play Ball!, a historical fiction chapter book, and Art For Change, a realistic fiction chapter book. For young readers, all three publications are forthcoming from Gibbs Smith Education.

In summer 2021, supported by the Arts Education Partnership and the Education Commission of the States, Gideon created A Curious Honeybee, a film that “provides an experiential learning environment by activating visual, musical, natural, and emotional literacies…[offering] welcome through traditional and digital elements of literacy.”

Gideon earned a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from North Carolina State University and Bachelor’s in Literature from the University of Connecticut. Winner of a Borchardt Award from Global Teachers NC, Gideon is a Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina where he serves on the Fellows Advisory Team. He is a K-12 Literacy Specialist and a former Title 1 Elementary School Teacher. He is a winner of a 2023 Arts in Education Artist Residency Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Gideon is a North Carolina Writers’ Network manuscript editor. He has served on the North Carolina state advisory board for the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series and continues to serve as judge for various state, national, and international poetry contests. He served on the Carrboro Poets Council for ten years, 2016-2025. A panelist at the Furious Flower Poetry Conference 2024, he was recently appointed by the North Carolina Poetry Society as the 2025 & 2026 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the Eastern Region. Primarily a stay-at-home dad, Gideon lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

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