Kathya Alexander

Kathya Alexander is an African American author, playwright, storyteller, and teaching artist. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s greatly impacted her life and continues to influence her writing. Her stories and plays are unapologetically rooted in traditional Southern, historical, and contemporary African American culture. They focus on how African American culture has shaped America, and how living in the United States has influenced who we are as a people. She has written extensively about the Black rural South, drawing on her experience of growing up in a segregated society where African American entreprenuers, educators, and political and social organizations flourished and thrived. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies, magazines, and literary journals, and pride permeates everything she writes. She won the Fringe First Award for her play, Black to My Roots: African American Tales from the Head and the Heart at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Returning to the Festival with the 25th anniversary revision of Black to My Roots, she won the Binge Fringe Black Performers Award for Excellence in Writing. She was a Writer-in-Residence, was showcased at the Inaugural Playwrights Festival, and was a guest playwright at the prestigious Hedgebrook Writer’s Retreat. Angel In The Outhouse is her collection of short stories, and her debut novel, Keep A’Livin’, was released in 2024 by Aunt Lute Books. The audiobook of Keep A’Livin‘ will be released in 2026 thanks to awards from the Jack Straw Writers Support Program and 4Culture.