CYNTHIA DEWI OKA (Dewi) is a poet, creative facilitator, and narrative strategist with a global perspective and two decades of cross-sector experience working at the intersection of art, spirit, and strategy to transform complexity into clarity. 

She is the author of four acclaimed poetry collections: A Tinderbox in Three Acts, published by BOA Editions in 2022; Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) published by Northwestern University Press; and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water, published by Thread Makes Blanket in 2016. Among other distinctions, Dewi has been awarded the Amy Clampitt Residency, Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award, and the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize.

Dewi earned her MFA at Warren Wilson College, and has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, the University of New Mexico, and The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension. She has been a featured poet on stages across the US, as well as internationally, including The Brooklyn Rail, Busboys and Poets, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, and institutions including Princeton, NYU, UPenn, and UCLA.

In 2025, she served as Visiting Writer at the Vermont Studio Center and for PEN America’s Emerging Voices Fellows.

For fifteen years, Dewi worked in globally oriented, justice-driven organizations and movements. Most recently, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Adi Magazine (2022–2024), which explores international issues through the lens of art and ideas, and as Senior Manager of Global Campaigns at Renaissance3 (2023–2025), an award-winning digital strategy and communications agency that advances democracy, human rights, and more humane economies worldwide.

Dewi has expanded her practice to include modalities that support reconnection with ancestors, soul, and earth. Today, she partners with individual creatives and purpose-driven teams to imagine new futures rooted in care and responsibility for the planet, and to align vision, values, and practice through art-informed and spiritually grounded strategy. 

Originally born in Bali, Indonesia, Dewi migrated to Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territory when she was 10 years old. She is currently based in Los Angeles, Tongva Land. As an immigrant and former young single mother with working-class roots, her life and work are guided by her core values: self-determination, collaboration, and attention to the peripheral.

She writes to be of service to the planet and to future generations.