YOU CAN MAKE A CHANGE

IN THE LIFE

OF SOMEONE TODAY

RAVINA WADHWANI

POET, AUTHOR, APIA SCHOLAR

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ravina Wadhwani.

Hi Ravina, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?

I actually started writing poetry from a very young age, when I was growing up in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was always more geared toward writing in school and as a way to express myself at home. However, it wasn’t until I was in high school that I had a space to understand that I was always writing oriented. I took a creative writing class in high school and it was here where I realized that poetry was something I loved and was good at. I dropped it for a while when I started to pursue my undergrad and graduate studies on the East Coast. It was always something I was drawn to but had to focus on my career in mental health at the time. Poetry wasn’t seen as a serious interest until I had graduated with my Bachelor’s degree and was able to move to Boston and live right in the city. It was here that I found the Haley House Cafe- a super small and intimate but world renown open mic and feature space in Boston that helped me realize how healing and transformative poetry was. I remember lining up in the freezing cold in Boston to make sure I got a seat at the cafe every other Friday, without fail. I would come alive in this space being around artists of color. Here, I saw artists like Porsha Olayiwola, Oompa, Jonathan Mendoza, Melissa Lozada-Oliva and so many features who would travel from all around the nation to perform here. I finally had the courage to perform at the open mic here and it changed my life. I was going through a rough time and speaking my truth helped me transform my own trauma. I started writing again and brought writing workshops to elementary, middle, and high school students in the Boston Public School system.

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After moving to LA post- graduate school & getting my masters’ in mental health counseling, I craved a community of writers and an open mic venue out here in Long Beach. I was finding that my career in mental health working with survivors of trauma was helping me write and heal through poetry. Through the universe’s ears, my wish came true. I was introduced to Never Speak Long Beach, an open mic and poetry collective of amazing people here who host an open mic every first Friday of the month (when things were open). I started attending in 2018 and was warmly welcomed into my poetry family. Through this space, I was coined the title ” The Silent Assassin”, because I tend to be more quiet and shy as I enter the room and then I transcend once on stage and really come to life through my pieces. Performing at Never Speak helped me land my first show as a feature with the Long Beach Literary Society where I performed and then ultimately landing me a spot at Community literature Initiative’s Poetry Publishing Class where I was able to go through a year of working on my pieces in a community of like-minded poets and authors who all aimed to have a publishable manuscript by the end of the academic year. I was signed to World Stage Press in 2019, and my collection of poetry and prose will be published in June of 2021 in my debut book. “Yellow”. My journey in LA has brought me some incredible opportunities through art, including speaking at the 2021 Women of Distinction event here in Long Beach where I was able to virtually perform in front of some of the most incredible women in the city. It shows me that poetry is valuable literally everywhere. As of recent, I was also invited to join Never Speak’s team as their newest member of the squad!

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