I write from the intersections of grief and liberation, memory and magic, rage and reverence.
As an author, critical essayist, and the founder of Cowrie Crossings, I write across genres: essays, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction that leans into genre-bending romance. My work is anchored in Black and Indigenous cosmologies, feminist resistance, and the belief that another world is not only possible but already emerging through our stories. I write to compost empire, tend to grief, and root us in the futures we deserve.
My work holds both grief for what’s been stolen, destroyed, or denied, and imagination for what can still be nurtured into being. I write as a Black and Indigenous femme, a cultural worker, and a community educator. My writing is not separate from my organizing or my care work. It’s all part of the same root system.
I’m shaped by the clarity of bell hooks, the cultural diagnostics of Resmaa Menakem, the truth-telling of Toni Morrison, the visionary worldbuilding of Octavia Butler, and the grounded, gut-level praxis of adrienne maree brown. My writing centers the dignity of marginalized lives, holds space for discomfort, and invites readers into reflection, rupture, and repair.
I write for people navigating grief, collective trauma, and political disillusionment, and for anyone longing for connection outside capitalist extraction. I believe writing can be both a tool and a talisman.
Latest pieces:
“Blood Memory” - midnight & indigo
“Five Minutes with Colman Domingo (& Five Years with the Dress)” - just femme + dandy magazine
“Inedible: Black Aliveness and the Hunger of Empire” - Dead Pretty: Beauty in the Horror Genre Anthology, Nottingham Horror Collective
“Lil Nas Ex Utero” - just femme + dandy magazine
“Bedsheet Cinema” - just femme + dandy magazine
“DEAR BADDIE ON A BUDGET / Updating a Wardrobe You Can't Afford” - just femme + dandy magazine
“DEAR BADDIE ON A BUDGET / What are wardrobe staples?” - just femme + dandy magazine
“Mycelium Meditation” - warmly.zine (available digitally and limited edition print!)
“Love Left at the Frontlines” and “Ayo” - Fish Girl Collective
“Milkweed Season” - Journals of Love & Literature, Issue 03, “Metamorphosis”
“Hostage in the Heartland: Black Queer Lives Beyond Madea” - Ebony Tomatoes Collective 25th issue “Watch Your Mouth”
“I Only Limp When I’m Loved” - issue 7 of SICK magazine
“Good Meat” - COOP! Magazine
“Slip” - Radical Catalyst Art & Literary Journal
“I Wish I Was The Dead Girl” - a poem published in Bloodlust Magazine
“Black Girl, Initiate” - Bloodlust Magazine blog
“Congratulations. You Survived.” - NAVY PEN
“Not Your Jezebel” - Safe Slut Talk zine
“Trust Fall” - self-published
“a poem for Renee Good” - self-published
“goldilocks got a lease now” - a poem published in Issue Six of Recenter Press
“Atlantis” - a poem published in Black Feminist Collective
“Stage 2” - a poem published in Black Feminist Collective
Forthcoming:
“Redlines to Rootlines: Landback as Afrofuturist Architecture” - Echoes of the Earth: Black Voices Reclaiming Ecology and Justice, Cassava Republic Press
“Oswego Road” - a poem, Echoz Magazine
🌿 My Writing
You’ll find essays, meditations, and cultural criticism that explore:
Grief & loss (both personal and collective)
Embodied liberation
Black & Indigenous cosmologies
Anti-fascist dreaming and speculative futures
Mutual aid and solidarity economies
Queer & feminist reflections on pop culture, power, and kinship
🪴 Services I Offer
You can hire me to write or collaborate on:
✍🏽 Personal essays and creative nonfiction
📚 Cultural or political commentary
🧰 DEI and justice-oriented writing for nonprofits (blogs, newsletters, curricula)
🌀 Workshop-based writing guides, ritual texts, or reflection prompts
💌 Grief-informed content for spiritual or care-centered spaces
💸 Rates & Access
Click here to download my full rate sheet →
🤝 Let’s Work Together
Are you an editor, organizer, educator, or spiritual leader looking to collaborate?
Send me a pitch, invitation, or question:
📧 cowriecrossings@gmail.com
📍 Oakland, California
🌐 @MayaGawoniiwrites on Instagram
I’m open to assignments, commissions, partnerships, and mutual aid-based writing projects. Let’s create something mutually nourishing.
