Writer, Documentary Researcher, and Content Producer
Mai is a Brooklyn-based writer and content creator from South L.A. She currently works as an Associate Producer on the PBS docuseries Finding Your Roots, which traces the genealogy and family histories of celebrity guests. In 2021, she worked as an Archival Researcher on the PBS series Making Black America: Through The Grapevine, and in 2022 as an Associate Archival Producer on the Showtime Sports Emmy-Nominated documentary NYC Point Gods. As a freelance journalist, she has contributed to sociocultural digital platforms such as The Progress, The New Context, Pop Magazine, Black-Owned Brooklyn and Shoppe Black. As an alum of VONA/Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, her work has been featured in several anthologies including Dismantle. She has also worked on film production crews in LA and NY, as well as in Hong Kong in 2014 documenting pro-democracy protests and sustainable housing in the New Territories. In 2020, she became a social media manager for Ujima Entertainment Coalition, an organization committed to racial equity in Hollywood.
Completing a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, Perkins has taught writing courses at City University of New York's College of Staten Island and Kingsborough Community College. She has her BFA from Howard University and received her MA in International Affairs from The New School's Julien J. Studley Graduate Program. In 2018, she published debut collection of essays and poems, The Walking Nerve-Ending.