Mai’a Williams

Mai’a Williams is the creator and director of Water Studio, which supports and co-creates with underground community artists and revolutionaries in Cairo, Egypt, and she organizes with the Revolutionary Youth Councils of Cairo, which were among the leading forces during the 2011 ouster of Mubarak. It was her living and working with Palestinian, Congolese, and Central American indigenous mothers in resistance communities, that initially inspired her to become a mother and continues to guide her as she practices this life-giving work called radical mothering. Her essays, short stories and poetry have been published in make/shiftMamaphilesTenaciousPopshotWoman’s WorkLilith Devotional, and Colored Girls. She is the instigator of the Outlaw Midwives movement, zines, and blog, which shifts the discourse around birth, life, death, and healing by offering a vision of radical empowerment and accountability. In 2008, she published the anthology Revolutionary Motherhood, a collection of writing and visual art about mothering on the margins, which became the inspiration for Revolutionary Mothering.