Patrick Washington (aka Black Picasso) Interviews Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman on WPFW

Patrick Washington is the Director of Poetry for world-renowned nonprofit, Words, Beats and Life, founded by Mazi Matafa in 2002. WBL hosts the weekly show, "Something to Say," hosted by Patrick and Mazi.
About Patrick Washington
Patrick was forged in Washington DC’s vibrant arts community of the mid-90’s, finding his voice on DC’s famed U Street corridor alongside luminaries like Toni Blackman, Ta-Nehisi Coates & Jason Reynolds. Nationally, as part of the dynamic hip-hop poetry ensemble POEM-CEES, he spent the early 2000's a regular performer on HBO’s legendary Def Poetry TV series and was seen on the NFL Network. In 2009 he was asked by Tavis Smiley to serve as narrator for the centerpiece of his national African American museum exhibit, “America I Am”. His biggest honor by far was being commissioned to create a poem dedicated to the monument to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King which he performed at the unveiling on the national mall on October 16th 2011. A teaching artist at heart, Patrick has not only been WBL fam since it's beginnings, but in 2016 he founded the arts education company, Dialect of Prince George's County and with it, created the county’s Youth Poet Laureate program, giving young people the opportunity to collaborate with city officials & serve as poetic ambassadors for their community.
About Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman
Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, Ed.D. is a visionary leader and community organizer, nationally recognized speaker, and writer. A playwright, she has had more than a dozen of her plays presented publicly in venues throughout the country, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Alliance, and Baltimore Theater Project. She was a Theater Alliance Quadrant Playwright from 2019-2021, a 2019 Fulbright-Hays scholar, a 2015 Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist awardee and a 2012 Prince George’s County Social Innovation Fund Forty Under 40 awardee. She is the second Poet Laureate of Prince George's County, MD (2023-2026).
Dr. Ali-Coleman is author of the poetry collections For the Girls Who Do Too Much (2024), and The Summoning of Black Joy (2023), the children’s book Mariah’s Maracas and co-editor of the book Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture. Her work is featured in multiple publications, including Clarion, The Skinny Journal, two volumes of the book anthology The Fire Inside: Collected Stories and Poems from Zora’s Den, and the academic text Afro-Futurism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity and the Remaking of Blackness (Rowan & Littlefield, 2021). She is currently editing the book, Homeschooling Black Children on a College Pathway that is scheduled to be released in 2025 by Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC (BFHES) and will feature chapters written by a half dozen homeschooling parents.
Dr. Ali-Coleman is the founding director of Liberated Muse Arts Group, Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC and Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, Inc.