The Short Bio
Deonna Kelli Sayed is a recovering ghost hunter, an American Muslim, and an interfaith instigator. She is also an internationally published author and an award-winning podcaster. Deonna is the PEN America NC Piedmont representative. Once upon a time, she was the Festival Coordinator for Greensboro Bound: A Literary Festival. Now, she works for the North Carolina Writers’ Network, Deonna also works for a French chef — because all writers need multiple side gigs. Sometimes, Deonna performs monologues and one-woman pieces. Her essay , “Contested Whiteness: True Tales of a White Muslim Woman” was turned into a short film, Joe and the Shawl by filmmaker Nicole Ballivian.
Deonna is available to lead writing workshops and/or as a speaker on issues from Islam in America, the power of storytelling, to interfaith engagement.
Follow Deonna on Twitter @deonnakelli and Instagram @deonnasayed
The Long Bio
Deonna Kelli Sayed is an internationally published author, a storyteller, TEDx speaker, and an award winning podcast producer. She is an interfaith dialogue instigator and a recovering ghost hunter.
She is the PEN America representative for the N.C. Piedmont area (Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh).
Deonna is the author of Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts & Hauntings, Spooks and Spirits. Her essays are included in Love, Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women and Faithfully Feminists: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay. Her short stories are featured in the Press 53 anthology, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction From a Small Planet, Red Fez, and Drunk Monkeys (forthcoming).
Her personal essays appear at The Dirty Spoon, The Manifestation, AltMuslimah, & Patheos. Her podcast work for Yes!Weekly, OUT IN THE SOUTH, received state and national press awards (2017).
Deonna’s media appearances include NPR, WUNC-TV, WUNC’s “The State of Things,” The Monti, and local NPR affiliate, WFDD. She is the Membership Coordinator for the N.C. Writers’ Network, the 2018-2019 Festival Coordinator for Greensboro Bound: A Literary Festival,
Deonna’s short essay, Joe and the Shawl, was turned into a short film by director Nicole Ballivian.
She is currently working a novel about exploring how personal and political origin stories impact how we understand the world.
Deonna is available to lead writing workshops and/or as a speaker on issues from Islam in America, the power of storytelling, to interfaith engagement.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
