Maria James-Thiaw

Maria James-Thiaw is an award-winning poet, performer, and playwright. She is the author of four poetry collections and her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including Black Lives Have Always Mattered, and Essential Voices: A Covid19 Anthology. Poems from her play, Reclaiming My Time: An American Griot Project, won the Art of Protest Award from Penn State University’s Center for American Literary Studies in 2018. Maria James-Thiaw is the founder of Reclaim Artist Collective, an organization that brings her American Griot Project programming to marginalized communities.