Discipline/Field: Poetry

Based in: Los Angeles, CA

About: Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and poet who has devoted her professional career to empowering and mobilizing South Asian Americans, particularly muslim women. She focuses her creativity on counternarratives and culture-shifting to move hearts and minds and reckon with social justice issues. Holding a mirror to her community through an award winning podcast (#GoodMuslimBadMuslim), essays, and activism, she has become a strong voice for people long misrepresented and marginalized.

Project Title: To Be Human, Again & Grasping at the Planet Just to Believe are two poetry collections that touch the spiritual core connecting Tanzila to her faith and its fate in the hands of our greater society. Her writing evokes the path she has taken reflecting on the dehumanization of Muslims during the Trump presidency and how she has been called on to change the world around her as a Muslim American poet in Los Angeles. 

Relevant links: Twitter, @tazzystar, Instagram, @tazzystar; Facebook: tazzystar; website www.tazzystar.me