Maya Williams

Maya Williams (ey/em, they/them, and she/her) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently an Ashley Bryan Fellow and was selected as the seventh Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine  for a July 2021 to July 2024 term. 

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Maya's debut poetry collection, Judas & Suicide, is available through Game Over Books .  Eir second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date, is available now through Harbor Editions.  Maya's third poetry collection, a chapbook: What's So Wrong with a Pity Party Anyway? , is available for pre-sales now via Garden Party Collective. 

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Maya's collections are a finalist of a New England Book Award, a finalist of a Maine Literary Award, and a winner of Garden Party Collective's chapbook contest respectively. 

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See the contact section on how to invite them to your next event as a workshop facilitator, performance feature, speaker, panelist, and/or honorary consensual virtual or air hugger. Maya's content covers suicide awareness, mental health, faith, entertainment media, grief, interpersonal relationships, intimate partner violence, and healing.

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She graduated with a Bachelors in Social Work and a Bachelors of Art in English in May 2017. She graduated with a community practice-focused Masters in Social Work and Certificate in Applied Arts and Social Justice at the University of New England in May 2018. She graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts for Creative Writing with a Focus in Poetry at Randolph College in June 2022.

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They have featured as a guest artist, panelist, and speaker in spaces such as The Mixed Remixed Festival in Los Angeles, California, The Interfaith Leadership Institute in Chicago, Illinois, Black Table Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, TEDxYouth at Cape Elizabeth High School, and The Kennedy Center's Arts Across America series.

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Ey has competed locally and nationally in slam poetry since her freshman year at East Carolina University under the slam team Word of Mouth in Greenville, North Carolina. While with them, ey placed in the top 20 at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) in 2015, and opened for folks such as Indira Allegra, Neil Hilborn, and Angela Davis.

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They were a finalist of the Slam Free Or Die Qualifier Slam for their National Poetry Slam (NPS) 2018 team and a runner up of the Slam Free or Die Individual Slam Championship in 2018. They were also a recipient of the Maine Humanities Council's Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize in 2024. 

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Maya has a Patreon you can donate to right here.

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