Shia Shabazz Smith works to ensure that her works, her art, and her service represent her many communities-at-large. Shia has completed seven feature-length screenplays, one of which earned finalist placement in the Moondance and Tribeca All-Access competitions; and twice advanced in Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab competition. Her directorial debut film, Kids and Caffeine on a Mundi, ranked in the top ten in Austin CineMaker’s “Make a Film in a (M.A.F.I.A.) Weekend” contest and screened at the Austin International Super 8 Film Festival. Shia's first short film, Curdled, has screened at eight film festivals, internationally. A widely published poet, Shia is a Cave Canem Fellow, a VONA participant and a member of The Austin Project: Experiments in the Jazz Aesthetic. Current projects include an eighth feature-length screenplay, two TV series projects, and a second full-length poetry collection, Vanishing Womb, which explores the traumas of losing a mother to Dementia. Shia is a high school teacher in a community school for students with mild/moderate learning challenges. Shia lives in Oakland, California, where she enjoys walking Lake Merritt and indulging a perfectly layered square of tiramisu.