Ashanti "Shan" Anderson
Portfolio & Services
Ashanti creates
to challenge systems in the way of individual & collective healing.
About
Ashanti Anderson (any pronouns), who also goes by the name Shan (pronounced Shawn), is a Black Queer Disabled writer and a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts fellow. Shan is the author of Black Under, which won the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Shan's poems have appeared in POETRY magazine, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. Shan's other published and produced works include essays, stage plays, screenplays, and tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). Shan lives in Philadelphia, works as an end-of-life companion, and is currently studying to become a mental health counselor.Representation: Nanda Dyssou at Coriolis Company
BLACK UNDER
Cover Art by Mariah Quintanilla
Poems by Ashanti Anderson
Winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition
Black Under layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies—and incongruences—of marginalization and hypervisibility... In these pages, declarations are reclamations, and joy is not an aspiration but a birthright.
Praise for Black Under:
"Black Under defies strict categorization, save for the fact that it is altogether excellent."
—Marcus Wicker, author of Silencer and Maybe the Saddest Thing"Witness Anderson's haunting and marvelous skill."
—Kay Ulanday Barrett, cultural strategist and author of More Than Organs a 2021 Stonewall Honor Award Book" I’ve read these poems again and again, and every time I leave like—it’s we time. With lines like “throat unbuttons its sound,” and “I wish trumpets for my last breath,” we end up communing with people who remember themselves, over and over, the way they were, and the way they are and are and are.
—Sara Borjas, author of Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff
Order Online at Black Lawrence Press
Or Request at your local library!
SELECTED POEMS
My Ancestors Who Learned to Read by Staring at the Bible, in Limp Wristsister, pick which battle to win when you choose to lose the war, in The RumpusDeep Nostalgia, in Container MagazineSlave Ship Haibun; Acrostic for my Last Breaths, in Jet Fuel ReviewSelf-Portrait in Blackface; Self-Portrait as Overseer; Resignation, in Tupelo QuarterlySelf-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank, in PoetryIf, in World Literature TodayOde to Black Skin, in Poetry (audio available)Cleaning Up Men's Messes; Mamie Till on Carolyn Bryant's Confession, in Foothill JournalGoddam, in Really SystemTeach Me to Float, in Panoply
POETRY BROADSIDES, POSTCARDS, & MORE
Coming Soon.
SCREEN & STAGE
Study Room (2018)
Short Film | 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)
One Act Play | Credit: Writer
When a conjure woman perfects a potion for "Black power", she uncovers the nefarious desires of her clients. Contact for full script.
GAMES
Come At They Necks
Kick a** — and look good while doing it: a combat-heavy tabletop roleplaying game about vampires.
Be My Neighbor
Help your neighbor (without calling the police): a For The Queen-style collaborative storytelling game.
Discomfort Food
A GM-less one-page TTRPG about food insecurity for up to an unlimited number of players.
Contact