Asheda Dwyer

Asheda Dwyer is a writer. Her latest essay, Run and Tell My People I Have Returned but I
Will Not Pay to Enter the Dungeons (2024) will publish in the inaugural press at the Library
of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), as part of the 2024 Black Atlantic residency
program. At “Documenta Fifteen” in Kassel, Germany, she formed part of the commissioned
public programming for the “Clepsydra Stage” (2022), designed by Black Quantum
Futurism. Her project, I Will Not Weep for Babylon: Black Oratures on the River (2022)
combines poetry interspersing tableaus of fiction over original dub reggae. Her poem,
Foremothering. Or, The Weight We Have Been Carrying Across Time (2022) features in
“Interviewing the Caribbean” (IC) from the University of the West Indies Press, edited by
Opal Adisa Palmer and Carole Boyce Davies, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of
Sylvia Wynter’s novel, Hills of Hebron. Other publications include Holy Metal (2022) in the
“Ancestors” issue of ROOM Magazine. Pelham Park Gardens (2021) and Lightrail (2021) in
the “Island of Influence” fall issue of Arc Magazine, guest-edited by Brandon Wint. A
Personal Dispatch from Slavery in Chile (2020) shortlisted for the TLN Tele Latino Prize and
Oversight (2018) won the “What’s Your Story” (North York) literary competition in the
category of poetry, presented by the Ontario Book Publisher’s Organization. From 2022 to
2023, she was a “Young, Gifted & Black” non-theater artist in residence at Obsidian Theater
focusing dramaturgy and producing. Later that year, she formed part of the cohort for the
2023 Emerging Poetry at Banff Center for the Arts and Creativity. She is currently
developing a debut publication of poems for 2025.