Ta'Shia Asanti

Ta’Shia Asanti, award-winning poet, fiction writer, rapper, filmmaker, and journalist who studied with Sonia Sanchez. Transplanted from southern California (where she studied at UCLA and Beyond Baroque) to Denver, she is managing editor of GBF Magazine & has written for Blacklight Online.  She is a founding member of Denver’s Black Inkwell Writers and contributing editor to In the Black and Urban Spectrum Magazine.

Ta’Shia is an African-American lesbian and one of the longest running columnists for the national magazine, The Lesbian News. She started doing the Black Lesbian Herstory feature story each year in February in 1995 and has interviewed over 30 Black lesbian leaders from around the world--as far as Kenya. She has written about subjects rarely discussed in mainstream media in her columns, she has written about Racism/White Supremacy, Classism, Homophobia in the Black Community, Black Lesbian Relationships, Traditional African Spirituality, Female Genital Mutilation, September 11th revisited and highlighted the work of celebrated Black Lesbian Writers and Activists. In 1995, she was given the Christopher Street West award for creating visibility for lesbians in Los Angeles. In 1996, she was given the Audre Lorde Black Quill Award by the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum for creating positive images of Black Lesbians in the Media. In 1997, she was nominated for a LAVA award for her community service.

Ta'Shia is also a celebrated seer, medium, healer and spiritualist.  Her newest creation is "a book to help my sisters and brothers to find the divine path to spiritual and personal wholeness, a book that tells my journey to self and a relationship with what I call Holy Divine Spiritual Energy also known as the ancestors, spirit guides, Orishas and God."  If you want a practical approach to living a spiritual life in a non-spiritual world, this book and web site (http://sacred.door.home.att.net) is for you.  Stay tuned for monthly affirmations, Spiritual Insight about World Issues (The US View) and specialized guidance for specific groups such as women, people of color, men and families. 

On her site, you can view essays on sacred door experiences gained from study groups of the sacred door, participate in one-on-one spiritual readings about the path to your highest destiny, how to overcome life challenges and hear about her exciting projects, book tour and speaking/lecture schedule.  She is available for workshops, spiritual retreats and private readings and her areas of specialty are HIV/AIDS, Cultural Diversity, Stress Management, Holistic Healing, Women's Healing and Self-Esteem Building, Relationships, Traditional African Spirituality, Weekly Sacred Door Writings on the Web, and the  Poetry and Creative Writing page.

US Contributor Selected Co-chair
At Arapahoe Community College

Ta'Shia Asanti was selected co-chair of diversity programming and Umoja (Unity) Alliance at Arapahoe Community College (ACC). Asanti, an award-winning poet, journalist, activist, and writer, will co-chair Umoja, an on-campus group that organizes the school's diversity programming. She will work with co-chair Tammy Samuels, who has been instrumental in developing the cultural diversity activities at the school.  In her position, Asanti hopes to create bridges across race, gender, and sexuality, as it relates to educational components at ACC, by bringing nationally-recognized speakers such as June Jordan, Dr. Cornell West, Dr. Francis Cress-Welsing, Tim Wise, and Haki Madhubuti. Asanti is a contributing writer for the Urban Spectrum.

UMOJA (UNITY) STUDENT ALLIANCE (USA)
USA ADVISORY COUNCIL

Love Shook My Heart 2: Lesbian Love Stories Release date: 2002 • 268 pages • Softcover • 1-55583-617-8 The inescapable power of romantic attraction, enduring love, and crushing heartbreak is explored by award-winning authors Elana Dykewomon and Ruthann Robson, joined by Karen X. Tulchinsky, M. Christian, Aja Couchois Duncan, Laura Famer, Kathy Anderson, Holly Ellingwood, and numerous others. Editor Jess Wells, taking over the helm for this follow-up to the best-selling Love Shook My Heart, has brought together an assemblage of contemporary writing's brightest talents to map the terrain of lesbian love from flirtation to breakup, from passionate trysts to dead-end affairs, from sweet to bitter. These exceptionally crafted stories, as diverse as their creators, are as unerring as Cupid and with identical aim.  Features:  Bessie and Sweet Colleen Ta’Shia Asanti

Source:  http://sacred.door.home.att.net
www.urbanspectrum.net

Articles:

Celebrating Our Community Elders
Interviews Conducted by Hanifah Chiku and Stephanie Jarman
Story by Ta’Shia Asanti (Urban Spectrum)

Young Black Professionals: Empowering Our Generation X
By Ta'Shia Asanti

A Tribute to Lesbian Stepmoms

by Ta'Shia Asanti
for Blacklight Online

Randall Robinson Speaks Out on America’s Debt to Blacks --
 By Ta'Shia Asanti (Gay Black Female)

Film

Train Station



Stephanie Wynne &
Ta'shia Asanti
USA 1997  20 min.

Chicago, 1955. When Eddie May spots Luna Belle, "a fine specimen of a woman," at the train station it's love at first sight. Some good home cookin' and a warm bubble bath lead to trouble for the bull dagger in search of love. Featuring Asanti in both roles.

Written by Ta'Shia Asanti directed by Stephanie Wynne

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or
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Rashida X



The day in the life of a black female revolutionary.
1996 30 min.

written & directed by Ta'Shia Asanti

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or
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