Writer / Poet / Illustrator / Visual Storyteller
JACARISTALLINGS
I’m a writer and visual storyteller exploring identity, love, grief, memory, and becoming—turning the small, strange, and painful parts of being human into something worth remembering.
New York → Massachusetts
Portrait / Jacari Stallings
01 / Biography
About
Jacari
Born in New York and now based in Massachusetts, Jacari Stallings is a writer, poet, illustrator, and visual storyteller whose work explores identity, love, memory, grief, and the strange beauty of becoming. His work moves between poetry, storytelling, and illustration, often finding meaning in experiences and details that might otherwise be overlooked.
Through deeply personal yet universal storytelling, Jacari turns ordinary moments, complicated emotions, and unexpected connections into something worth remembering. His books embrace imperfection and vulnerability, allowing words and images to exist together as pieces of the same story.
His work includes Color Outside the Lines, with upcoming works Anemoia: Morse Code Memories and Butterfly: A Second Chance at Flight. Together, his growing body of work blends poetry, illustrated storytelling, and experimental projects that blur the line between writing and visual art. At the center of everything he creates is a simple idea: even the smallest moments of our lives can leave the biggest echoes.
02 / Process
My
Approach
My approach to writing and art has always been really personal. A lot of what I create comes from things I’ve experienced, things I’m still trying to understand, or feelings I don’t necessarily know how to explain normally. I’m inspired by people like Gabbie Hanna and Ariana Grande, but also K-pop and groups like TXT and CORTIS. I love how all of them can create an entire world around their work, where the music, visuals, fashion, storytelling, and emotions all feel connected.
I think I do the same thing with my work. I take small things like a butterfly, a flower, the moon, an object, or even just a random memory and somehow they become something bigger. They start representing love, grief, identity, loneliness, nostalgia, growing up, or whatever I was feeling when I made it. A lot of my work can look simple, pretty, or even childlike at first, but there’s usually something much heavier underneath it.
I also don’t really care about everything being perfect. Sometimes I actually like when something looks a little messy or unfinished because it feels more human. The shaky drawings, weird placement, empty space, handwritten things, all of that is part of the story to me.
03 / At the center
At the center of the work
“My life, my creations, in their purest form, are a love letter to Black women.”
The women who raised me, loved me, inspired me, and shaped the way I see the world are always somewhere in what I create.
I think more than anything, I just want to take something that was mine—a memory, a feeling, a person, a moment—and turn it into something that can belong to somebody else too.
The work continues
Words, drawings, memories, and worlds—made personal, then offered outward.
Explore the books →