Ahyoka Saas

Ahyoka Saas is a Two-Spirit Cherokee and German writer and composer raised in an end-times cult. They’ve directed and showrun five hour-long sketch revues at The Second City Chicago, won Roadmap’s Diversity Initiative Competition and Native American Media Alliance’s Animation Fellowship in 2022, and performed hundreds of narrative improv shows across the Midwest US. This non-binary, pansexual, neurodivergent leftist tells genre-bending satirical comedy, drama and horror stories about flawed yet lovable queer, Indigenous, and neurospicy protagonists set in surreal worlds. Ahyoka’s debut book, Koalas & Other Funny Short Stories, is available now in Lansing and Chicago bookstores as well as online. The Faulty Five, a Cherokee led superhero comic book based on Ahyoka’s award-winning script, is set to be published in 2023. In addition to having played in blues-funk bands and releasing music as a solo artist, Ahyoka is a founding member of the Chicago musical comedy collective Good Ass Group. Ahyoka currently produces instrumentals for two musical comedy influencers with over twenty million TikTok views. Most recently, they composed the short film Headdress (directed by Taietsarón:sere Leclaire) which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2023. Ahyoka had directed two Queer, trans, BIPOC comedic romance short films, Close To You and Over It, which are both available to watch on Youtube.