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Maya Phillips

Maya Phillips performs on the Cantab open mic. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Maya Phillips performs on the Cantab open mic. Photo by Marshall Goff.

New York native Maya Phillips began slamming at the Emerson College Poetry Project in 2008 and found her way to the Cantab Lounge in the same year. A powerful performer with remarkable sense of persona and role, Maya has become an active and prominent reader in both the New York and Cambridge slam scenes, featuring throughout New York and the New England area.

A former curator of the Emerson Poetry Project, Maya represented Emerson at CUPSI as a member of the college’s 2010 and 2011 slam teams. She competed for the Cantab at the National Poetry Slam in Cambridge and Boston as a member of the 2011 Cantab slam team.

Maya holds her BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing with a concentration in poetry from Emerson College, where she completed a creative thesis in poetry and an academic thesis examining gender roles and the portrayal of women in Greek drama. She is a freelance writer/copy editor and also works at the Academy of American Poets. She is best reached through her Facebook page. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.