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Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, Ed.D.

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Dr. Ali-Coleman with participants in her workshop, "Crafting Compelling Narratives: Mastering the Three-Act Structure " during the 2024 DC Public Library Find Your Story Writers Festival.

Dr. Ali-Coleman with participants in her 2024 workshop, "Writing for Liberation" presented by MahoganyBooks bookstore at the National Harbor in Maryland.

Dr. Ali-Coleman with participants in her workshop, "Developing a Liberation-Centered Writing Practice," presented by Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, Inc. in partnership with Prince George's County Memorial Library System.

About Dr. Khadijah 

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, Ed.D served as the second Poet Laureate of Prince George's County, MD from 2023-2025. 

Dr. Ali-Coleman is a community organizer and cultural architect with over 20 years of applied experience transforming places into arts and educational spaces. She is award-winning performance artist Khadijah Moon, and a multi-genre writer who is a producing playwright and filmmaker.  Her plays, songs and poetry has been staged, workshopped and read on dozens of stages, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Alliance, Anacostia Playhouse, The Baltimore Book Festival, National Harbor, ARTSCAPE, Capital Fringe Fest, The Baltimore Book Festival, and Anacostia Arts Center. Dr. Ali-Coleman is author of the published and forthcoming poetry collections Halos for Heroes, Friends and a Few People I Don't Like (2026),  A Park Stands on All of Our Graves (2025), For the Girls Who Do Too Much (2024), The Summoning of Black Joy (2023), the children's book Mariah's Maracas (2018) and co-editor of the book Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture (2022). 

Dr. Ali-Coleman is founding director of Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, a 501(c)3 nonprofit started in 2024. She founded the multidisciplinary arts group Liberated Muse in 2008 and co-founded the national education research group, Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC (BFHES), in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine. BFHES has provided a supportive space for over 3000 families since then, offering annual teach-ins and workshops. She has maintained the youth development blog So Our Youth Aspire since 2006. Dr. Ali-Coleman has been featured in the The Washington Post, USA Today, The Guardian, The Financial Times and more because of her work in arts and education. She has been interviewed by various broadcast media outlets, including NPR, CNN, Slate, and local affiliates of NBC, FOX and CBS.

​For over 20 years, she has created and led educational programs at numerous institutions, and has taught English,  Communication Studies, Professional Writing and Fine & Performing Arts at different colleges and universities since 2011, including Montgomery College, The University of Maryland, Community College of Baltimore County and Prince George's Community College. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Humanities department at Coppin State University in Baltimore, MD where she is currently based.

Dr. Ali-Coleman is a professional member of The Dramatists Guild, The Recording Academy and the Association of African American Museums.  Her plays can be found on the New Play Exchange. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for her writing, performance and teaching from the Maryland State Arts Council, Prince George's Arts and Humanities Council, Watering Hole Poetry, Poets & Writers, Prince George's Community College Foundation, and Northern Virginia Community College.

Dr. Ali-Coleman holds a doctorate in education from Morgan State University; a Master of Arts degree in Mass Communication from Towson University; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (African American Studies and Mass Media) with a minor in Writing from the University of Maryland Baltimore, County (UMBC). She earned a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Workplace Certificate  from the University of South Florida, Muma College of Business in 2021.

In the News

Dr. Khadijah and her daughter, Khari were featured in this August 2025 article in The Baltimore Times that highlighted their experience as a homeschooling family. Dr. Khadijah homeschooled her daughter off and on during her P-12 years and graduated her from their family homeschool in 2021. Khari earned an associate's degree from the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) while homeschooling for high school and graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2024. Both women run Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC, serving other Black families choosing to homeschool.

Dr. Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman Keynote Address 

UMBC 2024 Winter Commencement Ceremony

UPCOMING EVENTS


August 20, 2025:
WORKSHOP – Getting Started Homeschooling with BFHES, LLC
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

September 2, 2025:
WORKSHOP – Exploring Ancient Egypt: Culture, History & Modern Influence
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

September 9, 2025:
WORKSHOP – Reading & Writing African-American Poetry: A Teen Workshop
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

December 9, 2025:
READING – Wilde Readings Poetry Series
7:00 PM EST | Queen Takes Books | Columbia, MD | LEARN MORE

                                          Watch Now

NEW BOOK! GET YOURS TODAY!!

Waiting to read this on my flight for my birthday was a gift I didn’t know I needed. Thanks for this beautiful collection.

- Jade Weatherington, Founder of Teacher Jade's Writing Academy
The silence survival requires is sometimes deafening, especially if you’re a poet and quite a good one at that. The unsaid has to go somewhere, and, for poet Khadijah Ali-Coleman, it goes into a poem called "Survival Tactics" in her most recent poetry collection, For the Girls Who Do Too Much. It was only after I had absorbed the theme of the poem that I noticed the rhyme scheme of the poem. I read the rhyming words as their own poem, a kind of internal poem-within-the-poem and that made the poem resonate even more.


-Tichaona Chinyelu, author of Contraband Marriage, In the Whirlwind and Still Living on My Feet

For the Girls Who Do Too Much is a poignant and powerful collection of poetry by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, the 2023-2026 Poet Laureate of Prince George's County, MD. This collection is an ode to the women who wear many hats, work tirelessly, love deeply, and sometimes lose themselves in the process. With unflinching honesty and tender introspection, Ali-Coleman navigates themes of loss, love, aging, work toxicity, mothering, and depression.

Through personal stories and vivid imagery, the collection delves into the complexities of relationships, including the poet's nuanced connection with her late mother, whose life was tragically cut short in 2014 by a police cadet's reckless actions. The poems resonate with the universal struggle of balancing personal identity with the demands of daily life, making this collection a must-read for those who find themselves doing too much, too often.

In For the Girls Who Do Too Much, Ali-Coleman offers a heartfelt exploration of the resilience, vulnerability, and strength that define the experiences of many women today. It is a celebration of the enduring spirit and an invitation to pause, reflect, and reclaim one's own narrative.

Liberated Muse in the News

Liberated Muse presented their musical presentation, "The Soundtrack of Social Justice" at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC on Feb. 21, 2025 during the center's Social Impact endowment-funded programming. Less than a month previous to the show, Donald Trump had fired the center's executive director and replaced members of the board of directors. He then declared himself the president of the board. In response to this unprecedented disruption, screenwriter Shonda Rhimes resigned from the board and actress/producer Issa Rae canceled her paid ticket event that had sold out. Liberated Muse's director, Khadijah Z. Coleman decided to keep the date as an act of resistance to tyranny. Victor Blackwell of the CNN show, "First of All" interviewed her.
 

Conversations with Dr. Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman

Traveling to Cuba in 2024 Year with Alice Walker

One of the amazing highlights of 2024 was Dr. Ali-Coleman meeting literary icon Alice Walker while participating in the Busboys & Poets Tribe Travel to Cuba for the unveiling of a statue of Langston Hughes to commemorate his birthday and his unique relationship with Cuban Poet Laureate Nicolas Guillien and the people of Cuba

Dr. Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman with Dr. Alice Walker in Cuba (January 2024)

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THE SUMMONING OF BLACK JOY 

by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman

On Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, Liberated Muse Arts Group performed poems from this book at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the presentation, "Voices of Freedom and Resistance," written and directed by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman. The show featured her original songs and poetry and songs and poetry by Bob Marley, Erykah Badu, Maya Angelou and Billie Holiday.

In this captivating poetry collection by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, released during the Juneteenth 2023 weekend, the power of words becomes a force to reckon with. Through poignant verses written both before and during the COVID-19 global health pandemic, Ali-Coleman weaves a tapestry of emotions that delve into the ongoing struggle for the liberation of Black people in America.

The Prince George's Arts and Humanities Council awarded Khadijah Ali-Coleman an Artist Fellowship grant in 2024 to complete an audiovisual companion to the book, The Summoning of Black Joy. This poem from the book, "Planting, a Poem about Umoja," is part of that project. The full project will be shared publicly as performance art at the 2024 Furious Flower Poetry Center conference and then released on Spotify in 2025.

2023 Prince George's County, MD Poet Laureate Installation

Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice (BWPSJ) was founded in 2024 to publish work by Black writers, provide skill-building learning experiences for Black writers and offer administrative training and services for literary organizations intent on creating a writing and public engagement practice founded in tenets of peace and social justice. Dr. Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman is the founding Chief Executive Officer of BWPSJ.

Theatre Reviews

A playwright, Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman has had more than a dozen of her plays presented publicly in venues throughout the country, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Alliance, and Baltimore Theater Project. She was selected as a Theater Alliance Quadrant Playwright in 2019, working on a commissioned play that was presented as a film by Theater Alliance in 2021.

"The songs [in Running:AMOK] are slow-burning little gems: some smoky, some bluesy, some sparkly."- DC Theatre Scene

      

Watch a Recent Performance or Interview

Get Your Copy of MARIAH'S MARACAS!

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HOMESCHOOLING BLACK CHILDREN IN THE US

 


In 2020,  Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman had just finished defending her doctoral dissertation on dual enrolled African American homeschooled students and their perceptions of preparedness for community college. The COVID-19 global pandemic and quarantine had just gone into effect. She was offered an opportunity to publish her dissertation into a book. She opted to edit an anthology of voices on Black homeschooling instead. During her own research study, she had seen the lack of Black voices in the research on Black homeschooling families. As a homeschooling mother and researcher, she wanted to expand the research literature and offer an opportunity for other homeschooling parents and researchers to share their experiences and research. And, that is what this book is. Released January 2022, it is on sale today.
Add it to your library today!

media work as a producer, host and director

Podcasts, Radio & Film Work


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August 20, 2025: WORKSHOP – Getting Started Homeschooling with BFHES, LLC
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

September 2, 2025: WORKSHOP – Exploring Ancient Egypt: Culture, History & Modern Influence
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

September 9, 2025: WORKSHOP – Reading & Writing African-American Poetry: A Teen Workshop
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST | Virtual | REGISTER

December 9, 2025: READING – Wilde Readings Poetry Series
7:00 PM EST | Queen Takes Books | Columbia, MD | LEARN MORE
 
NOW PLAYING!


Welcome to blck creatives in liminal spaces, where the host, Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman, dives deep into the intersectional worlds crafted by Black visionaries. This podcast is a vibrant tapestry weaving together the arts, science, education, technology, and beyond.

Join us for enlightening conversations that uncover the innovative ideas and unique perspectives of Black creatives who are not just dreaming but actively reshaping our world. Ready to peek behind the curtain and explore the minds of those at the cutting edge of creativity?

Tune in and get inspired!

Presented by Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice 

Click to hear On Spotify

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman holds a Master of Arts degree in Mass Communications from Towson University and has produced multi-media content for over 20 years.

Some of her credits include:


PODCASTS
Contemporary Perspectives in Black Homeschooling (2020-Present) Host, Writer, Producer, Director
The Black Writer's Studio Podcast (2022-2024) Host, Writer, Producer, Director

VIRTUAL EVENTS
Black Writers Lighting the Way: Getting Word Virtual Kick-Off (2023) Writer, Producer, Director
Legacy Awards hosted by Karyn Parsons (2022) Producer, Writer, Director

RADIO SEGMENTS
The Creative Midwife on First Edition on 88.9 FM WEAA

SHORT FILMS
Allergic (2021)
The Positive Impact of Homeschooling Black Children (2020)
BUNT (2018)
BRACELET (2017)


 

Booking & Media Inquiries

Be Who You Are (Official Video) by Khadijah Moon


Using the stage name, Khadijah Moon, Khadijah Ali-Coleman has appeared on numerous stages showcasing her talents as a versatile singer with incredible depth and musical instinct. She has appeared on renowned stages such as the Apollo Theater in New York and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with her arts collective, Liberated Muse and as a solo artist.  As a spoken word artist, she was featured for two years as a poetry host at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC and has edited three volumes of the Liberated Muse anthology series featuring writers and visual artists from around the world. As a poet, singer and playwright, she has served as the Creative Director of the arts collective Liberated Muse Arts Group which she founded in 2008.

In 2016, Khadijah compiled her music into a one-woman show called Song of a Space Cadet, presented by Artscape, the nation's second largest arts festival. The production featured music, poetry and monologues to share her memoir of how she rebounded from personal and national tragedy to create powerful art.
Soon after, she released a CD of the music from the show titled Song of a Space Cadet. 
 

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