Richard Prins is a lifelong New Yorker. He received his MFA degree in poetry from New York University, where he was a Goldwater Fellow and Adjunct Instructor of Creative Writing. Now, like some walking parody in a hipster sitcom, he is pursuing a second MFA degree in literary translation at Queens College, where he also teaches writing.

Aside from a poetry manuscript “Platypus Milk” and travel memoir “The Wanderer Eats His Own Legs”, his current projects include translations of the 19th century Swahili poet Muyaka bin Haji al-Ghassaniy (1776 – 1840), Katama Mkangi’s Africanfuturist Swahili novel Walenisi, and a hybrid project about the anticolonial Hehe chieftain Mkwawa.

He has taught creative writing to elementary, high school, and college students, as well as disabled adults. He has collaborated on Swahili hip-hop tracks with Tanzanian artists, including members of L.W.P. Majitu and Daz Nundaz.

Other accomplishments include getting arrested for disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, obstructing traffic, obstructing government administration, and resisting arrest in locales such as Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel, and the United States Senate.