Carmin Wong

Professional Bio

Carmin Wong is Guyanese-born playwright, poet-organizer, and dual-title ph.d student in english Lit•orature and African American and Diaspora Studies at pennsylvania state university. She is a proud graduate of Howard University and holds an m.f.a in poetry writing from the university of new orleans. Her research focuses on the intersections of spoken and written transnational Black literature and poetry, particularly the contributions of African American and Afro-Caribbean poets to Black liberation movements throughout the long twentieth century. Her work has been supported by the Africana Research Center and Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State, where she is currently a #DigBlk fellow and the #Harper200 Poetry Project Coordinator. 

Carmin is the 2024-2025 Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative-in-Residence with Castle of Our Skins and the 2025 Teaching Artist with Girls Write Now NYC. She has received artist grants from Scholastic, Poets & Writers, Jeremy O. Harris, and The Bushwick Starr, as well as fellowships from The Watering Hole, Furious Flower Poetry Center, the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), and the Wild Seeds Writers Retreat/ Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.  Her poetry was recognized by the Academy of American Poetry and is featured in Xavier Review, Obsidian, and elsewhere, as well as on WRBH and NPR/ WPSU radio.

As a performer, Carmin has brought her poetry to renowned stages, including Lincoln Center, The Apollo Theater, and The Nuyorican Poets Café. Her plays have been staged at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and across the national regional theater circuit. She is the co-author of A Chorus Within Her (Theater Alliance) and the playwright of Finding Home: Adeline Lawson Graham, Colored Citizen of Bellefonte (Black History Centre County Project). In her leisure time, Carmin teaches creative writing  in the centre county correctional facilities and leads workshops for K-12 students. Learn more about her creative work and scholarship at theCarminWong.com.