Keeonna Harris

Keeonna Harris is a writer, storyteller, mother of five, prison abolitionist, activist, and academic, born and raised in Watts and other parts of South Central Los Angeles. Her work focuses on health disparities and radical organizing for women connected to systems of mass incarceration, mothering, and community building as acts of radical defiance against carceral institutions.

Harris has received several honors including a 2018-2019 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, a 2021 Tin House Summer Residency, a 2023 Baldwin Center for the Arts Residency, and a 2023 Hedgebrook Writer Fellowship as the 2023 Edith Wharton Resident. She is currently a 2024 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow and a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Washington in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health, where she is developing the “Borderland Project,” a mental health and community support system for women forced to navigate carceral institutions to maintain connections with incarcerated persons.

Learn more at Keeonna Harris’s official website.