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Endria Isa Richardson is a Black, Malaysian, and gay American writer from Worcester, Massachusetts. Her essays have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Alpinist, and Bay Nature magazines. Her speculative fiction is in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, FIYAH, Nightmare, and other fantastic/al magazines. Her work has received notable mentions in Best American Essays and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the runner-up award from the Black Warrior Review nonfiction contest. Richardson was a Tin House Scholar and is a graduate of the Viable Paradise and VONA workshops. She was a Spring 2023 writer-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, California, where she was a McLaughlin Children's Trust awardee. She holds a JD from Stanford Law School and is currently a PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley.

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Why do I write?​

 

A question I have asked myself many times is “why do I write?” Maybe what I mean is, “what does it mean to take the time to write in this moment?”

 

To me, prioritizing writing means hoarding time for quiet, solitude, dreaming, and wondering. The urgency of justice tells me that there’s no time for dreaming or wondering. An analysis of power tells me that if I don’t take time to think, dream, and wonder, art will remain the province of white men and women with resources, whose imaginations will then continue to take up an inordinate amount of space in the collective imagination of this country. I worked on lawmaking in California for long enough to understand that imaginings become stories become culture become law. For me, it is no great leap to understand that the United States thrives as a violent, white supremacist nation because the dreams, wonders, and visions of Black and Indigenous people and other people of color are systematically excluded from its collective imagination. 

 

So what does it mean to be a queer Black and Malay person taking my time and writing stories? 

 

Writing moves at the slow pace of healing, not the rapid pace of trauma. But taking my time to write means I’m not giving my time in other ways, and spending hours in nature thinking about an essay instead of drafting legislation to close prisons or defund the police can feel like wasting time rather than taking it. How can I choose to respond to the violent trauma that’s killing Black and Brown people everyday in this country *by writing stories*?

 

I don’t know. I do know that I’m not alone in learning how to navigate this complexity. I am part of a long tradition of Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latinx, and other people of color in America choosing to make political art as a way to navigate individual power and oppression alongside structural power and oppression within a social, political, and economic context none of us can ever fully understand. 

 

In one sense, writing, and sharing my writing, is my way of giving the time I’ve taken back to all of us, so that we can enter into an imaginary space that sees, welcomes, loves, and values us. That does not imagine us as dead, or worthless, or only worth as much as we can work. That imagines us with wonder. We deserve to be imagined with wonder.

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Fiction 

- Good Water | Transition Magazine (forthcoming)
- Elevation | Fusion Fragment (2024)
- A Pedra 
| Lightspeed (2024)
-
You Without Me | Midnight & Indigo (2021), reprinted in Apex Magazine (2023)
- Beam Me Up, Scotty | Alpinist Magazine Issue 80 (2022)
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Wing/Flower | Apparition Lit (2022)
Wind Up Teeth | Death in the Mouth (2022)
Every Atom Belonging to Me As Good Belongs to You | Nightmare (2022)
- Life in the City | Solarpunk (2022)
- Forest Thing | Fireside (2021)
- Do Nothing | Lightspeed (2021)
- The Field Tiger | Clarkesworld (2021)
The Black Menagerie | FIYAH, reprinted in 
Lightspeed (2021) (Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 and Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror Vol. II Notable Story) 
Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining | Anathema (2020)
A Good Mother | Syntax & Salt (2020)
The Road to Damascus | The Harvard Advocate (2008)


News & Press

- "A Pedra" author spotlight by Laurel Amberdine
- "Every Atom" reviewed by Alex Brown, "Must Read Science Fiction August 2022"
- "Every Atom" in "Some Queer Short SFF August 2022"

- "Every Atom" author spotlight by Leighanna Derouen
- "Do Nothing" author spotlight by Jude Griffin
- "Forest Thing" reviewed by Alex Brown
- "The Field Tiger"
reviewed by Charles Payseur
- "The Black Menagerie" reviewed by Maria HaskinsA.C. WiseCharles Payseur 

- "Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining" reviewed by Charles PayseurMaria Haskins

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Columns

- The Human Animal: A Beautiful Line | Bay Nature (Fall 2024)

- The Human Animal: Under the Skin | Bay Nature (Summer 2024)
- The Human Animal: Cemeteries Are Gardens. Who are they For? | Bay Nature (Spring 2024)
- The Human Animal: What Counts as a Desert? | Bay Nature (Winter 2024)



Essays 

Is Tech Free Backpacking Worth the Hype? | Backpacker 
Love and Affection | Black Warrior Review (Non-Fiction Contest Runner-up)
- Story of the Butterflies | Bay Nature
- Redwood Memory | Bay Nature
- Generosity of Trees | Bay Nature 
- The Body of Climbing | Alpinist (Best American Essays 2021 Notable Essay)
- The Anchor of Care | Field Notes



& some Articles 

Stranger Things Than Abolition | Scalawag
Being Ruby J: Q&A with Brooklyn Bell | Elevation Outdoors
- Light the Fire: Vernan Kee and Weston Snowboards | The Daily
- The Problem Solvers | Trust for Public Lands
- Best Hike Ever: Massachusetts | Backpacker Magazine
Interview with Ryan Hudson | Elevation Outdoors
- Building Abundance with Brown Girls Climb | Outdoor Retailer 
How Redwood Forests Can Heal Us | Redwoods Magazine
Why We Run | Trail Runner Magazine
Don't Ride Sally, Don't Ride | All City Cycles
The White Side | Elevation Outdoors
After the Hike | Feathered Friends
​- Go to Nature to be in the World | Osprey
Octavia Tried to Tell Us About Space | Blavity
Because She's Powerful: In Conversation | Frank News


Reports 

Because She's Powerful: The Political Isolation and Resistance of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones | Essie Justice Group
Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California 

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For editing, sensitivity reading, DEI facilitation (clients have included
Backpacker 
and Shelterwood Collective), and outdoor modeling (appearing for Athleta, Smartwool, Patagonia, Osprey, Adidas), email is best:
endria.r@gmail.com.

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