Jessica Lohafer lives in Washington. Her work has appeared in Ghost Parachute, The Sweet Tree Review, Drunk in the Midnight Choir, Nailed Magazine, and Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Her collection of poetry, What’s Left to Be Done, was published by Radical Lunchbox Press in 2009. In 2020, she released the edited anthology, Allow the Light: The Lost Poems of Jack McCarthy.

She has served as the Program Director for Poetry in Public Education, bringing writing workshops to schools throughout the Pacific Northwest, and previously hosted the Write Riot Poetry Slam. Jessica received her MFA in poetry from Western Washington University in 2014.

"Jessica Lohafer writes with such energy, such force, her language is a kind of wonderful rabbit hole through which you fall, are remade. You come out the other end and see the world anew: a car, a shoe, a dress—these everyday objects—suddenly bizarre, hilarious, heart-breaking. You laugh as a Rolling Stone photographer goes “scream-stamping” toward his assistant Tonya (oh, Tonya!) and weep when a brood of girls who envision their mother as a “magician of vices” understand the fragility of their own lives. Feminist, realist, humorist, and magician of verse as well as narrative, Lohafer is a writer to watch."

-Kristiana Kahakauwila, This is Paradise

"I don't know anybody who doesn't love Jessica Lohafer on sight. She's the girl you always dreamed would move in next door. Her poetry comes as a sort of paradox, because she writes from a youthful consciousness with complete control, as if a fully mature poet were re-inhabiting and recording all those twenty-something life passages with a light, surprising, but absolutely sure touch. She's a revelation!"   

-Jack McCarthy, Say Goodnight, Grace Notes  

"Whether championing women's rights or describing the sorrows of a man in a checkout line, Jessica Lohafer is first and foremost a poet of humanity. Her attention is tuned to the personal, even when confronting deep social injustice. Because of this, her poetry sounds like a new kind of rally cry - a call of compassion and humor that demands our attention."   

-Ryler Dustin, Heavy Lead Birdsong