The Bio
About Me
Shia Shabazz Smith is a writer-director, poet, and educator based in Oakland, California, whose work lives at the intersection of artistry, identity, and lived experience. Across more than two decades of storytelling in film, television, literature, and performance, she is driven by one commitment: to tell nuanced, emotionally resonant stories that honor the complexity of the communities from which they emerge.
Her directorial debut, Dawn — a love story with a kiss of an Afrofuturistic sci-fi twist — has made its international festival debut. As a screenwriter, she has developed five original television pilots, numerous short films, and ten feature-length screenplays. Her short Curdled, starring Keke Palmer, Robinne Lee, and Chenoa Maxwell, offers a humorous, poignant look at a prenatal support group for women over 40 and has screened at eight international festivals. Her earlier short Kids and Caffeine on a Mundi placed in the Top 10 of Austin CineMaker’s “Make a Film in a Weekend” competition and screened at the Austin International Super 8 Film Festival. Her writing also spans documentary and animation, including I Am a King, an animated series celebrating the brilliance of Black boys.
Her short screenplay Doll — first published in TORCH Literary Arts magazine — marks a meaningful convergence of her work as writer, filmmaker, and advocate for authentic representation. Drawn from lived experience, the script has earned quarterfinalist and semifinalist recognition across five competitions, including First Runner-Up at the Sedona International Film Festival, and a coveted table read at the Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase in Cannes, France.
A Cave Canem Fellow and three-time Sundance Screenwriters Lab Stage Two advancer, Shia’s scripts have also placed as finalists in the Moondance and Tribeca All Access competitions. She was honored as the inaugural “Spark” artist in Torch Literary Journal and named Muse of African American Poetry for the City of Alameda, served as a teaching artist for UC Berkeley’s Poetry for the People Program, and premiered her one-woman show, Moments We Know, at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Equally devoted to education, Shia has taught English Language Arts and Social Studies while developing interdisciplinary electives in Film Studies, Script-to-Screen, Storytelling, Poetry, and Dance. She has mentored young storytellers through the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) Media, BAYCAT, Kingmakers of Oakland Animation, and the Black Girls Film Camp. She was named a McKibbin Outstanding Educator of the Year and selected for The Moth Teacher Institute Storyteller Slam.
A mother, wife, daughter, and community member, Shia lives in Oakland, where she continues to draw inspiration from the city’s vibrant, multifaceted communities — and from the countless stories still waiting to be told.
