Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Nia King

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Nia King is a mixed-race, queer, art activist, multimedia journalist, podcaster, public speaker, and zine maker. She lives in Oakland, California. Within her podcast, "We Want the Airwaves," Nia interviews queer and trans artists about their lives and about their work. The title of her podcast was inspired from a Ramones song and played as a demand for media access and an insistence on the right for margianlized people to take up space.

Contents

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Early life

King graduated from Mills College in 2011. She is originally from Massachusetts.

Career

"I want to be an artist for the movement," said King in an interview in Lambda Literary.

King co-edited the book Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives (2014) with Jessica Glennon-Zukoff and Terra Mikalson. The book includes Nia King's interviews with Ryka Aoki, Van Binfa, Micia Mosely, Yosimar Reyes, Kortney Ryan Ziegler, Lovemme Corazón, Fabian Romero, Magnoliah Black, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Miss Persia and Daddie$ Pla$tik, Virgie Tovar, Julio Salgado, Nick Mwaluko, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Janet Mock. The Advocate listed this book on its list of the Year's 10 Best Transgender Non-Fiction books in 2014.

King is host and producer of the podcast We Want the Airwaves in which she interviews queer and trans artists of color. Nia King said in an interview with KQED Arts that the title of her podcast is "from a Ramones song, which goes back to my punk rock roots. It’s also a demand for access to the media and an insistence on the right for marginalized people to take up space."

King's illustrations are featured in Voices of Mixed Heritage: Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations, a curriculum kit for grades 6 - 12 published by Brooklyn Historical Society.

King's zines include:

  • Art School is Hell (2013)
  • Angry black-white girl: Reflections on my mixed race identity
  • MXD zine!: True stories by mixed race writers, a collection of poems and articles about being a mixed race person in the United States
  • Borderlands: Tales from disputed territories between races and cultures, a sequel to MXD zine!
  • Borderlands 2: It's a family affair
  • We Are Not White Lesbians, a collection of comics about Nia King and her boyfriend, a transgender man
  • References

    Nia King Wikipedia