Maria Hamilton Abegunde

Maria Hamilton Abegunde is an ancestral priest in the Yoruba Orisa tradition, a Reiki Master with a focus on the recovery and healing of memory from sentient bodies. Her research and creative work focus on transgenerational trauma and community healing through contemplative practices. Excerpts from The Ariran’s Last Life, a Middle Passage memory-work, have been published in Let Spirit Speak!, Best African American Fiction and The Kenyon Review. Essays have been featured in The Journal for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, and nocturnes. Excerpts from Learning to Eat the Dead​ were selected as a COG poetry finalist. She is a Cave Canem, Ragdale, Sacatar, and NEH fellow. She directs The Graduate Mentoring Center and teaches African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.