ABOUT

Deshana Cabasan is a writer, poet, and facilitator born in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was shaped first by the smell of burning garlic, the closeness of Filipino community, and the understanding that family was not only biological. Her African American roots run through the Black Belt of Virginia, South Carolina, and her home church, Washington Tabernacle in St. Louis, where she learned early that God was present, enormous, and not the property of any single tradition. Her Filipino lineage is indigenous Ilocano, descended from immigrants who came to Alaska through the canneries, navigating the narrow passage between labor and belonging that defined so many Filipino lives in America.

She came into her literary life in the library of Beaumont High School on the north side of St. Louis — an all-black school in a neighborhood shaped by Black ownership, Black leadership, and the particular kind of knowing that comes from growing up inside a community that has been told it is not enough and has never believed it. It was there she first encountered Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and the writers who taught her that Black life on the page was not a concession but a revelation.

Her work moves through grief, healing, and self-realization — drawing from two heritages, two faiths, and the lifelong inquiry into what holds us together when everything insists on pulling us apart. A lifelong writer, she hosts writing classes, community write-ins, and meditative writing courses rooted in yogic principles — spaces that invite other writers to discover what language can hold and heal.