Additionally, Ewing is the author of the Ironheart comic book series for Marvel centered on the young heroine Riri Williams.
[11] Ewing was a Provost's Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago,[12] then became an assistant professor in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice from 2018 to 2022.
[24] In her book, Ewing introduces a concept called "institutional mourning", which refers to the multiple negative impacts experienced by the residents of areas where schools have been closed.
According to The Chicago Reader, "she finds that school closures are a form of publicly sanctioned violence that not only derails black children's futures but also erases a community's past.
[26] Ewing studied the impact of neighborhood, race, and socio-economics on student access to counselors and therapists, as well as their experiences with illnesses and deaths.
ProPublica named her Seven Scribes article on the fight to save Chicago State University to its list of "The Best MuckReads on America's Troubled History With Race".
[29] Writing for The Huffington Post, Zeba Blay named Ewing's essay on Joshua Beal's death to a list of "30 Of The Most Important Articles By People Of Color In 2016.
[32] Ewing has also drawn notice for her commentary on subjects like colorism,[33] school choice,[34] structural racism,[35] federal arts funding,[36][37] Frank Ocean and Harper Lee,[38] race in publishing[39] and in visual culture.
[41] Ewing serves on the editorial board for In These Times,[42] as co-director of arts organization Crescendo Literary,[43][44] and as co-founder of the Echo Hotel poetry collective with Hanif Abdurraqib.
[49] The Paris Review selected Electric Arches as a staff pick for the week on September 1, 2017, noting Ewing writes "trenchantly and tenderly" with "conversational...verse lulling the reader into territory that feels familiar, even when it isn't—into a world of 'Kool cigarette green,' 'lime popsicles,' and 'promised light.
'"[50] Writing for the Pacific Standard, Elizabeth King described Electric Arches as "at once a portrait of [Ewing's Chicago] home, a tender letter to black youth, and a call to her audience to think beyond the confines of systemic racism.
[52][53][54] 1919 is a collection of poems and children's songs based on the stoning and resulting drowning of Eugene Williams in Lake Michigan and the ensuing Chicago race riot of 1919.
[67] In 2019, Manual Cinema premiered No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks[68] by Crescendo Literary, made up of Ewing and Nate Marshall.
[75] Using archival footage of oral historian Studs Terkel in the beginning of each episode, Ewing then interviews a guest in a conversation with parallel themes.