Ashanti Anderson / Ashanti Creates
Ashanti Anderson is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Their debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Their poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web.
For bookings/speaking engagements, please contact: Coriolis Company
For all other inquiries, please email ashanticreates [at] gmail [dot] com.
Cover Art: "Untitled" by Mariah Quintanilla. Instagram: @mariah_quintanilla
BLACK UNDER
Poems by Ashanti Anderson
Black River Chapbook Competition Winner
Black Under layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies—and incongruences—of marginalization and hypervisibility. Anderson torques the contradictions of oppression, giving her speakers the breathing room to discover their own agency. In these pages, declarations are reclamations, and joy is not an aspiration but a birthright.
Read reviews of Black Under in Tupelo Quarterly and MADDBLACKREADS.
WRITING (SELECTED)
ESSAYS
Deep Nostalgia (audio available)
Kick a**—and look good while doing it.
Help your neighbor (without calling the police).
FILMS & PLAYS
Study Room (2018)
Credit: Writer
Winner of the 2018 Haley's Flight Page to Screen Short Film Competition
A young woman races against the clock to finish her term paper on time while being harassed by annoying classmates.
Bleak Magic (2021)
Credit: Writer
When a conjure woman perfects a potion for “Black power,” she uncovers the nefarious desires of her clients.
