Nia Ostrow Witherspoon is a black queer theater maker, vocalist and composer, and cultural worker investigating the metaphysics of black liberation, desire, and diaspora. Witherspoon is the Multimedia Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University, a Jerome New Artist Fellow, an artist in residence at HERE Arts Center, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and was a 2017-18 2050 Playwriting/Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. Her award-winning work has been featured by JACK, La Mama ETC, Playwright’s Realm, BRIC, HERE, National Black Theatre, BAAD, Movement Research, BAX, Dixon Place, Painted Bride, 651 Arts, and elsewhere. As a performer, Witherspoon appeared in Sharon Bridgforth’s River See, and in Cherríe Moraga’s La Semilla Caminante/The Traveling Seed. She holds a BA from Smith College and a PhD from Stanford University in Theatre and Performance Studies, and has held tenure-track professorships at Florida State University and Arizona State University.