nat raum (they/them, b. 1996) is a queer disabled artist and writer based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore, MD. They graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Photography and Book Arts and also hold an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from The University of Baltimore, where they also served as managing editor of both the school’s literary journal, Welter, and student-run press, Plork Press.
nat’s creative practice centers primarily upon their lived experience with loss and sexual trauma, as well as queerness, disability, and their C-PTSD and borderline personality disorder diagnoses. They are an avid maker of books and zines, including and especially hybrid publications. After over five years of working with an art therapist, their work has become an integral part of their healing process.
In addition to their editorial work at the University of Baltimore, nat is the founder and editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press, a queer literature and art publishing space. They are also an adjunct faculty member in the Photography area at MICA and in the MFA CWPA program at UBalt. nat's artwork has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Human Achievement, ICA Baltimore, BlackRock Center for the Arts, and the Griffin Museum of Photography, as well as published by Another Chicago Magazine, Soft Lightning Studio, and The B’K. Their writing is published or forthcoming in Gone Lawn, Poet Lore, beestung, Allium, Split Lip Magazine, Baltimore Beat, and others.
nat’s published books include the full-length collections the abyss is staring back (Querencia Press, 2023), random access memory (Bullshit Lit, 2023), this book will not save you (dogleech books, 2024), fruits of the valley (Querencia Press, 2025), you stupid slut (Bullshit Lit, 2026), and journal of various worries (Gnashing Teeth Publishing, 2026); the chapbooks preparatory school for the end of the world (self-published, 2021), specter dust (Bullshit Lit, 2022), the fine line (kith books, 2022), self portrait as several clusters of stars (Bottlecap Press, 2023), nat raum burns in hell! (Ghost City Press, 2023), inside baseball (back room poetry, 2023), salt box (kith books, 2024), foundwaves (A Moonlit Café, 2024), camera indomita (self-published, 2024), this is my stop (Maverick Duck Press, 2025), with gasoline (kith books, 2025), WANT (ink & ivy, 2025), april, buttersoft (Whittle Micro-Press, 2025), and dry stoner (Troublemaker Firestarter, 2026); the collaborative chapbook (e)laments (Stone Corpse Press, 2026; co-author D.W. Baker); and the photography publications waver / quiver (fifth wheel press, 2020), pool paintings (themselves press, 2023), and the untamed camera: extended cut (self-published, 2024).
