About the Author

Jessica Sampley is a writer, educator, and educational leader based in the rural South. She is the Academies and Career and Technical Education Director for Gulf Shores City Schools, where she leads district-wide initiatives at the intersection of sustainability, workforce development, and place-based education. Over the past several years, she has secured more than $4.35 million in grant funding to support innovative Sustainability, STEAMM, and Career and Technical Education programs and has built long-standing partnerships between schools, community organizations, and regional industry.

 

In 2019, Sampley founded the Gulf Shores High School Sustainability Academy, developing aligned programs that bridged the gap between core academics and career tech. Her work has expanded across all grade levels, integrating gardens, environmental restoration, and outdoor learning into elementary, middle, and high school curricula. District initiatives she has led include large-scale dune restoration projects in Gulf State Park, hydroponic growing programs that support child nutrition, and experiential learning opportunities such as biking, sailing, and scuba for place-based STEAMM education. She also regularly presents at regional and national conferences on sustainability, innovation, and cross-curricular design.

​

Alongside her work in education, Sampley is an award-winning poet and memoirist. Her writing explores the rural South, intergenerational trauma, silence, queerness, and survival, with particular attention to the ways families and communities shape what can—and cannot—be spoken. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Birmingham Arts Journal, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Beyond Queer Words (forthcoming in 2026), Sinister Wisdom (forthcoming in 2027), and elsewhere. Her work has been shortlisted for the Lascaux Prize and named a finalist in multiple poetry contests. Her lyric memoir-in-progress examines inheritance, violence, faith, and the long work of reclaiming the self.

​

Sampley’s writing and professional work are deeply connected: both are rooted in place, shaped by systems and patterns, and driven by a belief that naming what we inherit is the first step toward changing what we pass on. She lives and works in the South with her wife, still learning how to stay, build, and tell the story honestly.