Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie (MFA Mills College, Ph.D. Brown) is an interdisciplinary artist, poet, and scholar. Tallie is author of the Ezra Jack Keats Honor-winning children’s book Layla’s Happiness (Enchanted Lion Books), the poetry collections Strut (Agape Editions), Karma’s Footsteps (Flipped Eye), and the epistolary work Dear Continuum:Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation (Grand Concourse Press).
She and photographer Dominique Sindayiganza were recipients of an IGNITE Selection Award at the 4th International Eco Performance Film Festival for their cinepoem Barefoot Stroll. Tallie’s poetry is the subject of the film “I Leave My Colors Everywhere.” She is also featured in “Tell Me Another Story” a film about the importance of inclusivity in children’s literature.
Her first academic publication, The Unwieldy Otherwise: Rethinking the Roots of Performance Studies in and through the Black Freedom Struggle co-authored with Leon Hilton was published in the journal Performance Matters.
Tallie’s next picture book We Go Slow (Atheneum Books for Young Readers) is illustrated by Caldecott Honor-winner Aaron Becker and was named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and received a Publishers Weekly Starred Review. The book is available for preorder now!!!
Tallie is the mother of three galaxies who look like daughters.