Tendisai Cromwell

Tendisai Cromwell is a writer, podcaster, and media arts manager. She is the the former executive director of the Regent Park Film Festival and currently hosts the podcast “The Story So Far” about the lives and creative practices of Canadian Muslim artists. Tendisai writes fiction, essays, and poetry and most often explores faith, nature, and the nuances of identity and belonging. She has been published in BESIDE magazine, Santa Ana River Review, and elsewhere. One of her short stories was shortlisted for the 2017 Ross and Davis Mitchell Prize for Faith and Writing.

What have been the most rewarding aspects of your work so far?

As the host of “The Story So Far,” the conversations I’ve had with Canadian Muslim artists have been enriching, stimulating, and in some cases, deeply transformative to audiences members but also myself. There are guests, in the case of dub-poet and scholar Dr. Afua Cooper, where it felt grand, as if I were in conversation with history but also the future. There are other guests that have described, with heartbreaking beauty, the desire to feel a sense of belonging. I feel as if we’re contributing to more nuanced and uplifting portrayals of Muslims in this country and hopefully inspiring others to tell their own stories.

What have been some of the more challenging aspects?

Creating art and engaging in public conversations that revolve around identity is inherently challenging, especially as a Black Muslim woman. The entirety of my artistic practice is a response to and confrontation with the forces that actively harm the communities to which I belong. This can be a heavy place to constantly bring myself to emotionally and spiritually. 

Name a Black Muslim woman who has been an inspiration to you and why.

Dr. Afua Cooper, without a doubt, is the Black Muslimah that has been such a deep source of inspiration to me. She is a trailblazing historian and dub-poet that remains deeply committed to the work of justice and liberation. She is a truth-teller that embodies courage, integrity, and tenacity. And, mashaAllah, so much of our knowledge about Black Canadian history and the blooming of Black artistic expression in this country can be attributed to her creative and intellectual labour.