Tenea was born in Kentucky and fled at the first opportunity. She took with her, the calm of the Ohio River and the swell of honesty (sometimes refreshing, sometimes catastrophic) that afflicts the folks born along its banks. Adoring of ideas, she graduated from the New College of Florida (enroll there now and thank her later) and NYU’s Gallatin School, as well as attending Clarion. Writing sustains her; music saves her. As often as possible, she straddles their borders to create compositions/fusions/hyphenated watchamacallit better heard than described.
So far the Knitting Factory, Dixon Place, The Public Theater, and others have opened their doors to the form.
Tenea’s work has appeared in African Voices, Arise, Humanities in the South, Infinite Matrix, Contemporary American Women Poets, Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III and Necrologue, among others. She is the author of a poetry/short prose collection, Starting Friction as well as the novels, Smoketown and R/evolution.
