Shondra Bowie Riley

Shondra is an American Writer, Poet, Creative Practitioner, and Facilitator based in Scotland. Originally from Tongva Land (now known as Los Angeles), she grew up in South L.A. in the 1980s. 

Before moving to London in 2003, Shondra was a local DJ in L.A.'s eastside neighbourhood, Silver Lake. She started on legendary pirate radio station KBLT in the mid-90s and appears in the documentary,  40 Watts from Nowhere, directed by Sue Carpenter and executive produced by Jack Black.  Her DJ night Vinyl Tuesdays at Akbar, became a much-loved staple of eastside Los Angeles nightlife in the early 2000s.

Shondra's Substack, the feeling type. preserves her personal history, marks modern themes, and dialogues with declining landscapes through poetry and essays that echo her intersectionality as a Black woman living with disability. 

As former Co-Editor and Writer for the blog and digital magazine True & Woke (now ZYA), Shondra wrote and published articles on climate change, gender-based violence, and personal essays on living with a disability. She's published on Heroica.co and contributed to the University of Lincoln’s virtual exhibition ‘Rooms of Our Own: The Lockdown House’.

Shondra is a member of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network.

Shondra lives just outside Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, where she focuses on writing, community building, and anti-racism in creative spaces. She also hosts poetry open mics in her local community.