Atena O. Danner is a cultural worker who imagines Black liberation, engaged in boundless curiosity. Her poems range from kitchen-table specificity to expansive relatability, covering topics including neurodiversity, human connection, and collective liberation. Atena is grateful to have work published online, in anthologies, and her own book of poetry. She is an Anaphora Writers Residency Fellow, an alum of the Hurston/Wright Writers Week, an ‘In Surreal Life’ Surreal Scholar, and has been a featured reader for The Guild Complex Presents Exhibit B series and the annual Brooks Day celebration in Chicago. Atena is a founding member of Lifted Voices organizing collective and collaborates as a member of Surviving the Mic, a collective of survivors that hold affirming creative space for survivors of sexual violence. 

In their home north of Chicago, near the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires and of the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, Atena lives with her partner, dog and 2 free Black children. Her first poetry collection, ‘Incantations for Rest’ was released in 2022 and was awarded a Nautilus Silver Award for poetry in 2023.