walela Nehanda, Poet in Residence

Described as a writer who “shatters mirrors and windows to reveal the jagged shards of self-determination,” walela Nehanda is a poet, journalist, performer, and hybrid scholar born, raised, and based in Mid City, Los Angeles. A self proclaimed orca enthusiast and spicy Pisces (sidereal Aquarius) their writing is often concerned with health, media, culture, and spirituality, Nehanda is also the author of Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir with Penguin Teen. Likened to a modern day version of Audre Lorde’s Cancer Journals, Bless the Blood follows walela’s vivid experience, in verse, navigating cancer, the medical industrial complex, relationships, ancestral archives, and political awakenings.  

Published in 2024, Bless the Blood has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers’ Weekly, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness. In 2025, Bless the Blood has received the Young Adult Non-Fiction Book Award by the International Literary Association, given to a debut author who shows exceptional promise in their craft. Additionally, Bless the Blood was given the NCSS Dr. Rev. Pauli C Murray Book Award’s secondary honor and included in: Kirkus’ Best Books of 2024, American Library Association’s Rainbow List (2025), and Illinois Read for a Lifetime Booklist (2025), 

Nehanda’s writing has appeared for publications such as TIME, LA Public Press, The Poetry Foundation, SELF Magazine. Their most recent work exists on substack at (un)marked, an archive, a reader powered literary and audio essay experiment, criticism, and excavation on how media has influenced our world building and philosophies. walela also records audio essays, web weaves poetic cultural commentary, and produces a B-side version of Bless the Blood, where they revisit, remix, and break down their memoir.  

Throughout their career, walela has been featured in platforms like: The Cut, Nylon Magazine, The Guardian, Instyle Magazine, The Sentinel, Vice i-D. In 2020, walela was named in Out Magazine’s round up of 100 “groundbreaking, ripple-inducing, and culture-shifting people in the nation” alongside Janelle Monae and Andre Leon Talley. Nehanda received this for their work alongside National Marrow Donor Program of registering 6,500+ people as stem cell donors in a campaign addressing racial disparities in the registry. 

Nehanda has taught, performed, and provided keynotes at various institutions, including University of Iowa’s International Writing Program with Sub-Saharan African writers, Occidental College, UCLA, USC, The Hammer Museum, UCSB, Pomona College, St. Olaf’s, SUNY New Paltz, Politicon, and many more. their fellowships include: the 2020 Netflix x Adobe Crip Camp Fellowship and the 2024 Ford Foundation and Mellon Disability Futures Fellowship, given to one of 20 disabled artists across the country nominated by peers. 

walela is currently working on their second book, To Live and Cry in LA, a series of poetic essays related to growing up Mid City, Los Angeles. Coming of age within a liminal space of class, Nehanda, like any millennial, navigated the convergence of physical media blurring into digital virtual existences before their eyes, in To Live and Cry in LA Nehanda evaluates celebrity, representation, Black spectacle, western media, and virtual reality.