Dasha Kelly Hamilton

Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist, curator, and facilitator. Ultimately, she’s a creative change agent, leveraging the creative process toward human and social wellness.

Dasha has written for national, regional, and local magazines; produced three collections of poetry; recorded four spoken word CDs; published two novels; been included in several anthologies; and performed in the last season of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Her nonprofit, Still Waters Collective, initiated literary arts programming for twenty years, creating platforms for thousands of voices to be honored and heard. Through the organization, she still partners on impact projects and manages a creative leadership fellowship.

Dasha served as an Arts Envoy for the US Embassy to teach, perform, and facilitate community building initiatives in Botswana and on the island of Mauritius. She was also an artist in residence in Beirut. Dasha has been an adjunct professor at Mount Mary University, Alverno College, Bryant & Stratton, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and an MA in marketing communications from Roosevelt University.

A collection of her micro stories, DashNettes: Life, in Short, is available in the SHOP at JMKAC. Her JMKAC commissioned stage production, Makin’ Cake, will tour nationally beginning in 2021. A former Artist of the Year for the City of Milwaukee, Dasha was the city’s eleventh poet laureate. She is currently the Wisconsin Poet Laureate.

–March, 2022