Khalisa Rae is an award-winning author, activist, and storyteller. As a queer rights advocate and community builder, she seeks to uplift Black queer voices. She is the author of the poetry collection, Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat and the sold-out play production, Seven Deadly Sins of Being a Woman. An accomplished performer, journalist, and playwright, her writing has been featured in countless literary journals and magazines, including Pinch, PANK, Autumn House, Jezebel, Blavity, and NBC-BLK. Her impactful work has received an Appalachian Arts and Entertainment Award, a Gwendolyn Brooks Prize, and multiple Pushcart nominations, among others.
She is the founder of Think in Ink Literary Collective, the WOC Speak reading series, and a co-founder of the Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference. Khalisa Rae’s YA novel in verse, Unlearning Eden is forthcoming.
“ come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.” – Lucille Clifton
“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”
Mary Oliver
