Dr. Adrienne Danyelle Oliver

Dr. Adrienne Danyelle Oliver, MFA is a writer, hip-hop scholar, and educator living in Oakland, CA. She began her natural hair journey in 2004 while living in Little Rock, AR, where negative perceptions of natural hair were alive and well at the time. She survived her early career as a scholar transitioning to twists, then a ‘fro, and ultimately arrived at dreadlocks.  Adrienne’s academic work appears in Storytelling, Self, and Society, and Systemic Collapse. She uses creative writing to theorize about a more just education system that honors hip-hop culture. Her creative work has been published in Digital Paper and The Womanist. Beyond her work as an interdisciplinarian, she mentors other educators as a Bay Area Writing Project Teacher Consultant, training others to use hip-hop sensibilities to cultivate imaginative and inclusive instructional practices. Adrienne has been a VONA fellow and leads a virtual writing and healing circle for Black women. In her spare time, she likes to write poetry, play music, dance, and sing in the mirror à la Issa Rae.