Photo Credit: Leah Tribbett, Leah Trib Productions

THOMAS KNEELAND is a California-native, Mississippi-raised, African American poet, professor, and multi-hyphenate artist. He is the author of We Be Walkin’ Blackly in the Deep. During the summer of 2024, Kneeland joined the Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America (LEDA) Aspects of Leadership Summer Institute—LEDA Scholars Program—at Princeton University this summer to serve as a Writing Faculty member. Recently, Kneeland joined the Department of English and Modern Languages at Anderson University (Anderson, IN) as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of English. More recently, Kneeland was named a 2025 Emerging Scholar by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

Kneeland served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Indiana University-Indianapolis for the Speculative Play and Just Futurities Program, with funding from Indiana University, the Mellon Foundation, IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute, IUPUI Center for Africana Studies & Culture, and the Ray Bradbury Center. Kneeland is also the recipient of an Artist Ambassador Travel Grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF).

His poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Modern Language Studies, Southern Humanities Review, The Amistad, The Rumpus, Good River Review, Vagabond City Lit, Up the Staircase Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. His poetry submission, “Anchorman Sings the Blues,” earned a finalist place in Frontier Poetry’s 2022 Global Poetry Prize.

In January 2024, Kneeland accepted an offer of literary representation from The Bindery Agency. His most recent manuscript, Cienfuegos—a collection that explores his newly discovered Afrocuban and multiethnic lineage—is currently on submission. Kneeland holds a BA in English from DePauw University, an MA from Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Butler University.