Nakeysha Roberts Washington, M.S.Ed

Founder, Creative Director + Editor-in-Chief

Nakeysha Roberts Washington is a Milwaukee native who grew up making books as a child in her room. She used to fake sick as a kid just to stay home and write. Starting a publication was always in the back of her mind, and in 2016 she stopped waiting and built one.

What she built became Genre: Urban Arts, an internationally recognized platform, press, and creative community now serving 3,200+ artists and creatives worldwide. As Founder and Creative Director, Nakeysha leads the strategic vision of the organization, directing its publications, exhibitions, workshops, residencies, events, and partnerships. She has spent a decade turning Genre into something the creative community could actually rely on.

Her collaborators read like a testament to the range of her work: HarperCollins-Amistad, where she served as collaborator for the cover art for a Zora Neale Hurston title; the Milwaukee Art Museum, where she co-launched the Revolutionary Art and Culture Residency and facilitated public programming; the ACLU of Wisconsin, where she developed equity-driven literacy and social justice curriculum; Woodland Pattern Book Center, where she sits on the board; and The Story Collider, where she has produced and led science storytelling workshops internationally since 2019. She has also worked with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee Public Schools, Beloit University, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The High Line, Harlem Pride, Bowery Poetry, and the Newark Arts Festival, among many others.

With a dual degree of Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction and Creative Writing, and dual Bachelor of Science degrees in English Education and Literary Studies, Nakeysha brings 15+ years of classroom, curriculum, and facilitation experience to every project she touches. She is a published author, a featured essayist, a playwright produced at the Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn, and a presenter at conferences ranging from the National Council of Teachers of English to the Modern Language Association's International Symposium in Lisbon, Portugal.

In 2025, she was named a Friend of the Arts by the Milwaukee Arts Board.

She is currently producing "What the City Holds: Things We Made Here," a documentary film built from years of interviews with Milwaukee artists and community leaders, targeting a 2027 release.

Nakeysha's work is grounded in a single conviction: it is a creative's responsibility to interrogate and reveal the intricacies of social constructs through art. Genre: Urban Arts is what that looks like, built over ten years, with intention and without apology.

To book Nakeysha for workshops, curriculum development, speaking, or facilitation, contact: nakeysha@genreurbanarts.org