About The Orchardists
🍒 Blossom (HB) is a disabled writer and food lover based in Jane Austen County, England. She is also the Founder of Tea with HB which provides education, support, and comfort to a growing international community of disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent people through her podcast, videos, art, and consultancy. As the youngest Green Party councillor in the UK from 2021 - 2023, she is also a passionate advocate for revolutionizingÂ
the education system, improving sustainability, and increasing social justice. When she is not changing the world, you can find her absorbed in a Studio Ghibli movie, listening to Taylor Swift, re-reading Anne of Green Gables, re-watching Avatar: the Last Airbender, or trying out a new recipe! She is currently working on her first poetry book and movie.
Themes explored in Blossom's work at Poetry Orchard include: chronic illness, disability, neurodivergence, queerness, mental health, self-growth, friendship, found-family, morality, music, and a variety of fandoms. Blossom particularly enjoys encouraging budding writers to share their work, and… well… Blossom!
🍓 Maria Helena Mikkelsen is a Bolivian-born Danish-Malawian SEO editor, collage artist, novelist, and workshop facilitator. Maria is currently based in Central America where she splits her time between copyediting for a small collection of websites and community facilitation as part of Poetry Orchard. Her passions include video games, making collages, brushing up on her graphic design skills, and tentatively penning her debut novel, An Unintended Princess.
Maria’s professional experience includes: copyediting and article writing (2020–present), managing online writing communities (2019 - present), and facilitating workshops (2022–present). She is a contributing writer, editor, and digital artist for TheCoolist. Alongside Nashira, she co-founded and runs the Adventurer’s Writing Guild, a bi-yearly writing community inspired by National Poetry Writing Month. Nashira and Maria met Blossom through the Guild, and the three later founded Poetry Orchard and began facilitating creative writing workshops in October 2022.
Maria’s independent work has been featured in literary zines and anthologies, such as Mansion of Fears, Carpe Noctem, and Camp by MarĂas at Sampaguitas. Outside of writing and editing, Maria creates digital collages to accompany her self-published works (which you can commission by reaching out to her on Instagram).
Themes explored in Maria’s work at Poetry Orchard include: girlhood, friendship, grief, mental health, familial trauma, horror, and yearning. Her favorite contributions to Poetry Orchard include “The Bloody Orchard”, which was both an autumn 2023 open mic and a workshop inspired by dark fairytales. The event brought together many of her favorite writers and allowed her to explore spooky albeit tender themes that govern much of her personal work.Â
🍍 Nashira de la Rosa is a Jamaican-Filipino artist with a passion for crafting experiences that explore culture, history, and politics. She invests herself in many different mediums such as game development, illustration, music, writing, and zine making. When she’s not at her desk, she can be found in her kitchen attempting to perfect a new recipe. She shares love letters on her Patreon every week.
Nashira previously served as the multimedia editor for MarĂas at Sampaguitas & Sampaguita Press. She now works as a freelance creative writing editor, specializing in cultural accuracy. She practices literary translation and hopes to translate political books and zines between Tagalog and English. Outside of work, Nashira hosts events in the Black Card Members community and streams video games on Twitch.
Themes explored in Nashira’s work at Poetry Orchard include: Asian/Black culture and history, disability and neurodivergence, familial and religious trauma, and LGBTQIA+ identity. She is especially proud of her March 2023 workshop “Animal Crossing Memory Lane” which was held in celebration of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ third anniversary, doubling as a safe space for COVID conscious individuals to process their pandemic grief through poetry.
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“Friendship is a peculiar seed.
No matter the season, the weather,
nor the time of day.
When planted on a nourishing soul,
it will always bear fruit.”
– Clairel Estevez, A Peculiar BondÂ
