Chinaka Hodge is a poet and playwright. Originally from Oakland, California, she was named Best Poet by the East Bay Express in 2008. She was the inaugural recipient of Dave Eggers’ 826Valencia young author scholarship. Chinaka graduated from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in May of 2006, and was honored to be the student speaker at the 174th Commencement exercise.

Her most recent book, For Girls With Hips, released in May 2006, is in its third publication. Chinaka was a member of the U.S. Artist Delegation to the World Social Forum in Narobi, Kenya in early 2007.

She received co-writing credit for Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Scourge, sponsored, in part, by the Creative Work Fund, which opened in May 2005, in San Francisco. She was the assistant director of Suzan Lori Parks’ 365 Plays, 365 Days, at its San Francisco debut in November 2006. She also co-wrote The One Drop Rule: A War Piece, which debuted in Fall 2008. Her first independently written play, Mirrors in Every Corner, commissioned by SF’s Intersection for the Arts will open in spring of 2010.

Her work has been featured in Teen People Magazine, Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Oakland Tribune, Scholastic Magazine, Current Magazine, The Annual Women of Color Film Festival, PBS, NPR, KMEL, WBAR, WKCR, CNN, C-Span, KPFA and in two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry.

Past Performance venues include:

Nuyorican Poets Café, NYC

Bowery Poetry Club, NYC

Apollo Theatre, Harlem NYC

The Culture Project, NYC

Symphony Space, NYC

The Supper Club, NYC

Aaron Davis Hall, NYC

Pratt University, Brooklyn

Columbia University, NYC

Black Box Theatre, Oakland

La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley, Ca

Oberlin Dance Company Theatre, San Francisco

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Herbst Theatre, San Francisco

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C.