Amanda Shea

Amanda Shea is the arts & culture director at 617PEAK and is a contract educator with Boston Public Schools. A Black, queer creative, Shea works at the intersection of poetry, music, social justice, and culture and is a three-time Boston Music Award-winning spoken-word artist. Her work has been featured by the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Boston Globe, TEDx, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, and GBH, honoring African and Puerto Rican oral traditions while exploring social justice issues, and healing through trauma.

Shea co-founded Activating ARTivism, a community festival amplifying artists of color, and curates and hosts GBH’s Outspoken Saturdays, a platform that elevates local poets. She is the producer of the award-winning documentary BLACK: Narratives in Boston’s Black Queer & Trans History, a recipient of The Boston Foundation LAB Grant, and has curated arts showcases at the Boston Center for the Arts. Shea is set to release her first poetry collection, Pieces of Shea, with Balboa Publishing.