Krystle May Statler

Krystle May Statler (she/her) is a Black-multiracial woman, interdisciplinary poet, artist, and designer, with an MFA from Otis College of Art & Design. She's the author of Prayer for Relief, released on the fifth deathiversary of her brother’s murder by the Inglewood Police Department. Prayer for Relief has since won first place in both the nonfiction category of relationships–family for The Book Fest Awards and the grief category for the International Impact Book Awards.

In June 2025, Krystle completed the Certificate Training in Community Storytelling, hosted by The Hearth. In 2023, she graduated from the IPRC’s Poetry Portfolio Program and her anti-memoir, Doing Time: Letters to His Daughter, was long listed for the Disquiet International Literary Program prize where she received a partial scholarship to attend the 11th Annual Program in Lisbon, Portugal.

More of her work is featured in The Black Fork Review, Epiphany Magazine, Fugue Journal, Fourteen Hills, Sixfold, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Poetry from Instructions, poetry.onl, 1455's Movable Type Issue 7 & 9, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, and Cultural Weekly. Krystle's poetic-visual hybrid, Losing Blood, was a finalist for the 2022 CRAFT Hybrid Writing Contest & the 2021 CAAPP Book Prize.

Her design experience is diverse, with an emphasis on poetry and hybridity while also designing logos, marketing materials, children’s books, and more. For more than eight years, she's worked as the Book Production Manager for World Stage Press, a graphic designer for the Community Literature Initiative, and a typesetting assistant for Otis Books/Seismicity Editions. Krystle's latest design adventures are being the book layout designer for Mama’s Kitchen Press and working as a freelance designer for self-publishing dreamers!

When she’s not artisting or designing books, Krystle volunteers with Write Around Portland as a Workshop Facilitator, The Grief House as a Board Member, and Epiphany Magazine as a poetry reader, works as the Director of Operations at The Pathfinder Network, teaches the Chapbook Design Program at the IPRC, facilitates the Sibling Storytelling Series with The Grief House, and nurtures life in Portland, OR with her partner Kevin and oodles of beloveds.