J. Stillwell Powers was born and raised in rural New England. After entering recovery from addiction in 2008, he completed his GED and enrolled at Greenfield Community College, where he earned an associates degree in 2011. He went on to earn a B.A. in English from Amherst College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Oregon, where he taught a Kidd Workshop in fiction.

Powers’ writing is informed by his upbringing in the North Quabbin region of Massachusetts, his lived experience with addiction and recovery, and his ongoing work in addiction recovery communities and the prison system in Massachusetts and Oregon. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Willow Springs Magazine, The Florida Review, The Southern Indiana Review, Dogwood, Shankpainter, and on the Ploughshares Blog. He was a 2018-19 fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. While in residence, he began work on his first novel which explores the enduring impact of violence on individuals and communities, the relationship between trauma and the American opioid epidemic, and the way in which the present is haunted by the past. He’s represented by Tim Wojcik at LGR Literary.