About Rishi

Rishi Nixon is a nationally-recognized spoken-word storyteller and performing artist. In Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, he has been featured by clients from the National Parks Service and the Washington Folk Festival — where he recently performed for his seventh year consecutively — to Irvington Peace Park’s annual summer camp for West Baltimore youth, and Artists Standing Strong Together, a relief fund for independent performing artists.

With a love of South Asian folklore, Rishi has completed study of spoken classical Sanskrit at the advanced level and works to adapt ancient and sacred stories for accessible modern listening.

His current project in progress, The Ocean Churning, is a collection of stories arising from the puranic origin legend of the churning of the cosmic ocean of milk, from which he has performed for the Healing Story Alliance and at this year’s Washington Folk Festival.

From 2016 to 2020, Rishi was a member of the award-winning, twenty-year Maryland youth touring group The Twinbrook Tellers, after which he transitioned to performing as an independent artist affiliated with regional storytelling guild Voices in the Glen.

He is a director and lifetime performing member of Voices in the Glen, co-chaired the 2025 National Storytelling Conference at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and is the youngest person elected president of the National Storytelling Network since its founding in 1975.