Sign up here for my newsletter Creature//Creative -- new on the first day of each month.
Award Announcement
I am honored to announce that I have been selected as a recipient of the Greater Columbus Arts Council's "Funds for Artists" grant for 2023. I am excited to utilize this award to generate more creative works - including handbound chapbooks and zines - and to expand and deepen my voice work and readings. Many more projects lay on the horizon, but for now I will simply offer a huge thank you to the Greater Columbus Arts Council for prioritizing the arts, emerging artists, and the community at large.
Round 2 of grant applications are currently open, so if you are a creative, I highly encourage you to apply!
We need your art. The world needs your art.
Availability 2023
In 2023, Lashonda is looking forward to several endeavors: 1. Writing - alongside continued work developing new material for Tales From Niveen and Extraplanar Radio Show, Lashonda will be crafting new poetry, essays, and books. 2. Music, Voiceover, and Podcasts - sustaining work as the host of Extraplanar Radio Show and cohost of Absolutely Feral. crafting music compositions from and for poetry. speaking, reading, and voicing new poetry, fiction, and collaborative stories. 3. Community & Collaboration - community care, inspiration, and amplification through projects like UnBound Arts Collective, local open mics, readings and gatherings in Lashonda's hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Work with local orchestra students (Columbus Alternative High School or CAHS) and a local music nonprofit, Chamber Music Connection cmconnection.org), with the aim of supporting and elevating musical expression for youth. If you would like to pitch a collaboration, commission a work or project, or book interviews, podcasts, or other engagements, please email LmLove1014@gmail.com. For all pitches and requests include (at least) your name, contact details, project description, dates & duration, and any relevant expense/pay details (paid AND unpaid opportunities welcome and considered equally). If your request involves travel, please consider covering expenses or making the event local to Columbus, Ohio or the surrounding areas, otherwise, I may not be able to attend.
extended bio
Lashonda Love is a storyteller and interdisciplinary artist based in central Ohio. She holds her B.A. in Music from Denison University and is the Creative Director of UnBound Arts Collective. She is also the creator, writer, and narrator of Extraplanar Radio Show, and the author of TAKE THIS WITH YOU and Tales from Niveen.
Her work is deeply informed by daydreams of rest and liberation, identity, nature & romanticism, witchcraft, death & grief, chronic illness, eco-futurism, anarchy, gender, lust, and the nuances and intersections of all. Lashonda believes in the power of the arts, embodiment, and deep rest as tools with which to dismantle systems of oppression.
As a queer and genderfluid person of color raised in a low-income, trauma-affected household, Lashonda centers trauma storytelling and the intersections of identities in their projects.
Lashonda's first official endeavor into the arts began when she was gifted a violin from the pastor at her childhood church for her progress in music and invited to accompany service at ten years old. She was also an avid writer at the time and entered the Columbus Dispatch R.L. Stine Writing Contest, earning her first taste of recognition - publication in the local newspaper - at twelve years old.
While music and writing have been the main competitors for Lashonda's attention through the years, she has also dipped her toes into body movement through the study and practice of yoga, burlesque, African Dance, and Modern/Postmodern Dance. She was a performer in the 2017 dance, "Belonging Here' choreographed by Michael J. Morris, and even made an appearance as an accompanying musician with the ETHEL Quartet for Sandra Mathern's "Dance ETHEL Dance" presented in 2017.
More recently, she has taken to combining writing, sound, and spoken word to create new works and looks to continue bending artistic mediums to her will by incorporating visual art, dance, voice work, writing, and music at as many creative intersections as possible.
short bio
Lashonda Love is a storyteller and interdisciplinary artist based in central Ohio. They are the author of TAKE THIS WITH YOU, creator and narrator of the Extraplanar Radio Show, and founder and Creative Director of UnBound Arts Collective. Her work is deeply informed by daydreams of rest and liberation, identity, nature & romanticism, witchcraft, death & grief, chronic illness, eco-futurism, anarchy, gender, lust, and the nuances and intersections of all.
extras, interviews, & collaborations