Ytasha L. Womack is an award-winning author, filmmaker, independent scholar, and dance therapist. She is a leading expert on Afrofuturism and lectures on the imagination and its applications across the world.  Her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi and Fantasy Culture (Chicago Review Press) is the leading primer on the subject and is taught in colleges and universities. Afrofuturism is also a Locus Awards Nonfiction Finalist and inspired the Afrofuturism themed restaurant Bronze in Washington D.C.  She is featured in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture’s Afrofuturism exhibit running through February 24. She is also featured in the Smithsonian’s documentary Afrofuturism: An Origin Story. She was a co-curator for Carnegie Hall’s 2022 Afrofuturism Festival, a national event which includes music showcases, dance, workshops, and panels. She is an inaugural resident with Black Rock Senegal helmed by celebrated artist Kehinde Wiley, was a creative in residence with Kickstarter Spring 2019, a writer-in-residence with Emerson College in Boston Fall/Spring 2018-2019, and a Writer with Writers on the Wall (WOW) in Liverpool, England. Her zine Liquid, an exploration of oceans and rhythm, was part of the Black Rock Senegal exhibition at the Dakar Biennial in 2022. The work was featured in Vogue. Ytasha was honored among DesignHub’s 40 Under 40 designers for social good and innovation, a Filmmaker to Watch in The Chicago Tribune, and identified as a thought leader in design in The Black Experience in Design.

A Chicago-native, Ytasha has three books slated for upcoming release. Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration (Becker & Meyer), is a first of its kind book on the Marvel comic’s cultural inspirations and debuts Oct 3, 2023. The Afrofuturist Experience (Grand Central Publishing) will be released in Fall 2024 and her debut graphic novel, Blak Kube (Megascope), with Tanna Tucker, debuts February 2025. She also wrote the Afrofuturist themed science animation, Niyah and the Multiverse with Tayler Witten for The Adler Planetarium to be released in Winter 2024.

A prolific writer, her books include the time travel series the Rayla Universe including Rayla 2212 and Rayla 2213. The Rayla Universe was also recreated as an immersive experience in a themed world of music, dance, and as an augmented reality game for the Adler Planetarium’s Afrofuturism nights in Feb 2019 and Feb 2020. She also created a live action role play experience with Rayla at the Chicago History Museum in partnership with the Carnegie Hall Afrofuturism Festival in 2023.

 The Afrofuturism novella series A Spaceship in Bronzeville (Mouse Books) was created during Ytasha’s creative in-residence work with Kickstarter. She’s also author of the nonfiction works Post Black (Chicago Review Press), and Beats Rhymes and Life: What We Love & Hate About Hip Hop (Random House).  Her short story Liquid Twilight is featured in the award-winning anthology Africa Risen. Moreover, Ytasha’s essays can be found in the books Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures, Make Shift: Dispatches from The Post Pandemic Future, Artists Against Police Brutality, and Black Cinema and Visual Culture, among others.

Ytasha is director of the Afrofuturist dance film A Love Letter to the Ancestors From Chicago. The film won Best Experimental Film at the Collected Voices Film Fest. Her other films include the romantic comedy Couples Night (screenwriter) and the documentary Tupac: Before I Wake (coproducer). Her feature films Love Shorts (producer/writer), and The Engagement (director) were nominated for Best Film at the American Black Film Festival. She was nominated for Best Director for The Engagement at the festival as well.  

Ytasha created and leads an Afrofuturism dance therapy program for teens and adults often providing workshops to high schools, corporations, and museums. She’s presented the workshop in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism Festival, Boeing, After School Matters Chicago, The Sukkah Design Festival in Chicago, Beverly Arts Center, and Mayfair Academy, among others. She also curated the dance portion of Carnegie Hall’s AfroCosmicMelatopia event.

Ytasha has lectured at a number of universities, festivals, and futurist conferences. She gave the closing keynote address at PRIMER 19 and was a featured speaker at MIT’s Beyond the Cradle, UC Berkeley’s Past into the Future: Egyptology & Afrofuturism Conference, The KIKK Festival in Belgium, The Museum of Modern Art in NYC, The Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de St. Etienne in France, Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam, the Deutsche Kinemathek‘s Science in Fiction  in Berlin, the WOW Festival in Liverpool, South by Southwest in Austin, and the Acheworks Chicago Series among others. She’s an invited participant in the Decolonizing Mars Unconference at the Library of Congress, a keynote presenter for the Afrofuturism & Indigenous Futurism Conference at the University of North Caroline Chapel Hill, and a keynote speaker for Planet Deep South at Jackson State University. She’s also presented at Duke University, Medgar Evers College, University of Chicago, Clark Atlanta University, Yale University, The New School, Chicago State University, DePaul University, The City Colleges of New York and others. She created and moderated the University of Chicago’s Afrofuturism Symposium, a partnership with the Institute for the Center for Ancient Cultures and the Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry. The event had a special focus on Time Travel and Ancient Egyptian and Nubian art’s influence in comics and Afrofuturism.  

She’s a frequent speaker and artist presenter at Comic Cons and science fiction conferences across the US. She’s a two-time guest of honor at Convergence Con and a Guest of Honor at Diversicon in Minneapolis, MN.

She also cocurated the Black to the Future Afrofuturist playlist with recording artist Janelle Monae for Spotify, the Afrofuturism Festival playlist for Carnegie Hall, and wrote the liner notes for Flyling Lotus’ You’re Dead lp and the 2023 rerelease of Sun Ra’s Space is the Place lp. Her television appearances include ABC’s Soul of a Nation and ABC’s Juneteenth campaign.

Ytasha began her career as a journalist covering arts, entertainment and business. She was guest editor for NV Magazine; a former editor-at-large for Upscale Magazine, a former columnist for the Chicago Defender, and a special guest on WVON Radio Chicago.  Her work has appeared in Essence, VIBE, The Chicago Tribune, and more. A Chicago native, she has a B.A in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University and studied Arts, Entertainment and Media Management at Columbia College in Chicago. She has a Masters Certificate in Better Living, a study of Metaphysics and New Thought Philosophy from the Johnnie Colemon Institute.

*Photo by Tim Fielder