Instructor

Kai Naima Williams attended Writopia Lab for eight years as a young writer and is thrilled to join the team as an instructor in 2021. She is a storyteller, poet, and performer, and the author of the poetry chapbook He Tried to Drown the Ocean, I Waved. She is also the co-founder and Executive Director of Eat At The Table Theatre Company, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to providing actors of color with performance opportunities in New York City. In 2020, she graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in English and African American Studies.

Kai’s writing has been featured in Mask Magazine, DRØME Magazine, Louisiana Literature, Stirring Lit, and CRWN Magazine amongst other publications, and she has performed in showcases for Planned Parenthood, Sakhi for South Asian Women, and as part of the Freshman Class at Bowery Poetry. She is the 2018 winner of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Fiction Award, the 2019 recipient of the Monroe Prize for Excellence in African American Studies, and she has been honored by the National YoungArts Foundation and The New York Times.