Angelica Nwandu didn’t always have a way with words.
Nwandu, who grew up in Los Angeles’ foster care system, performed at poetry slams with the nonprofit Peace4Kids and recalls that her first piece “was pretty much a poem that said, ‘Fuck social workers.’”
But the founder of The Shade Room—which now has over 22 million devoted followers on Instagram—has since found her voice. After nearly seven years at the helm of one of Instagram’s most trafficked pages, which runs the gamut from covering celeb gossip to tracking Capitol Hill chatter, Nwandu now has a feature film writing credit under her belt and a screenplay in the early stages of production.