Eisa Nefertari Ulen is the author of Crystelle Mourning (Atria), a novel described by The Washington Post as “a call for healing in the African American community from generations of hurt and neglect.” Eisa is the recipient of a Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center Fellowship for Young African American Fiction Writers, a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, and a National Association of Black Journalists Award.

Her essays on African American culture have been widely anthologized, most recently in Who Do You Serve? Who Do You Protect? (Haymarket), which won the Social Justice / Advocacy Award for 2017 from the School Library Journal’s In the Margins Book Committee. Eisa has contributed to Essence, Parents, The Washington Post, Ms. Health, Ebony, The Huffington Post, Pen.org, Los Angeles Review of Books, TheRoot.com, TheDefendersOnline.com, TheGrio.com, Truthout.org, and CreativeNonfiction.org.

Eisa was nominated by Essence magazine for a National Association of Black Journalists Award for her tribute to photographer Mfon Essien, and she won a National Association of Black Journalists Award for her contribution to the Heart & Soul magazine feature, “State of Our Girls.”

Her essays on African American culture have been widely anthologized and explore topics ranging from Hip Hop, to Muslim life in America post-9/11, to contemporary Black literature, to the gap between the Civil Rights generation and Generation X.

Eisa graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. She has taught literature at Hunter College and The Pratt Institute. A founding member of ringShout: A Place for Black Literature, she lives with her husband and son in Brooklyn.

Contact Eisa to schedule an interview or tour.