Maurya Kerr

Maurya Kerr is a Bay Area-based artist and educator. Much of her work, across disciplines, is focused on black and brown people reclaiming their birthright to both wonderment and the quotidian. Maurya was a member of Alonzo King LINES Ballet for twelve years, an ODC artist-in-residence from 2015 to 2018, and holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University; she has taught in the LINES education programs since their inception. After co-curating ODC Theater’s 2023/24 season, she was appointed as Resident Curator for their 2024/25 season. Her sophomore short film, Saint Leroi, was described in the Village Voice as “a surreal meditation on Black history, violence, and American decay and a powerful indictment of racism.” Maurya is a 2025 NEA Creative Writing Fellow, with her poetry nominated for two Pushcart prizes and appearing in multiple journals. Other recent honors include winning Rhino Poetry's 2024 Editor's Prize, second place in Palette Poetry's 2023 Resistance & Resilience Prize, and first place in the 2022 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. She is author of the chapbooks MUTTOLOGY and tommy noun (winner of the 2022 C&R Press Winter Soup Bowl Chapbook Award). www.tinypistol.com