Junauda Petrus
Biography
Junauda Petrus is a Minneapolis-based multidisciplinary artist of Black Trinidadian and Crucian descent whose practice spans literature, theater, film, and performance. She co-founded Free Black Dirt with Erin Sharkey in 2012, an experimental artist collective based in Minneapolis that creates original theater and performance while supporting emerging artists. Her broader practice draws on Black diasporic experience, queerness, ancestral memory, liberation, and speculative imagination.
Petrus has developed a body of work across literary and performance forms, with a particular focus on Black queer lives, relationships, community, and alternative visions of the future. Her work has reached audiences through books, theater, film, poetry, and public performance, connecting contemporary Minneapolis cultural life with Caribbean and broader Black diasporic traditions.
Petrus serves as Minneapolis Poet Laureate for 2025–2026, a two-year appointment running through December 31, 2026. She was also selected as a 2026 Jerome@Camargo resident, where her current creative work includes developing Erotics of Abolition.
BQW Impact
Junauda Petrus's work expands Black queer representation across literature, theater, film, and performance by centering Black women, queer relationships, diasporic memory, and imaginative possibilities for liberation. Her work connects Minneapolis with Caribbean and broader Black diasporic cultural traditions while exploring queerness through storytelling, performance, and speculative imagination.
Her multidisciplinary practice demonstrates how Black queer storytelling can move across forms and audiences. Through literature, theater, poetry, and performance, Petrus creates space for Black queer lives, ancestral knowledge, collective care, and alternative visions of community and freedom.
Notable Works
There Are Other Worlds (2015)
An aerial theater work written and directed by Petrus exploring incarceration, motherhood, healing, and freedom.
Queen (2016)
A full-length puppet play co-written with Erik Ehn about grief, memory, and solidarity following the death of a grandson.
The Stars And The Blackness Between Them (2019)
A young adult novel following two Black teenage girls from Trinidad and Minneapolis as they navigate love, family, illness, and belonging. The novel received a 2020 Coretta Scott King Author Honor.
Impact Theory of Mass Extinction (2022)
A play created with Steve Ackerman and Harry Waters Jr. about two Black queer teens in South Minneapolis who encounter a prehistoric world through a portal.
Can We Please Give The Police Department To The Grandmothers? (2023)
A children's picture book imagining community-based safety and collective care beyond policing.
Learn More
Junauda Petrus Official Website
Petrus's creator-owned site, with her biography, literary work, theater, film, performance projects, and individual project pages.
Provides current institutional information about Petrus's Black Trinidadian and Crucian heritage, Minneapolis roots, Poet Laureate role, and current artistic work.
Documents Petrus's appointment as Minneapolis Poet Laureate and her 2025–2026 term.
Publisher profile listing Petrus's books and providing additional information about her literary work.