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Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta
Contributing AuthorsDelrica Andrews is a young woman with a lot on her mind. She's done a lot in the Washington, DC spoken word/poetry community and is the Treasurer for Poetry Slam, Inc. She has published a chapbook, costarred in a theater production, performed Shakespeare, sings karaoke, mumbles odd phrases in her sleep, curses like a drunken sailor, intentionally stopped drinking for a year (just to see if she could do it...and succeeded), survived a death defying car accident, works for multiple non-profits and falls in love with something new at the drop of a hat.
Rosanna Armendariz grew up in Brooklyn, New York and now lives in the U.S./Mexico border region where she attended the University of Texas at El Paso and earned a BA in sociology and an MFA in creative writing. Rosanna has participated in the Callaloo creative writing workshop at Texas A&M University and her fiction has appeared in Callaloo Journal. Her short stories have also been included in Bryant Literary Review, and Moon Journal. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology of Poetic Voices without Borders, BorderSenses magazine, Illya’s Hnoey, and Thorny Locust. Rosanna’s chapbook, Brooklyn Smoker, is available through Musclehead Press.
Askhari is a wild girl chile who has recently given up trying to save the world. Now, she has more available time to eat popsicles, search for money under the couch cushions, put rhinestones on her toes, watch The Wire and write wildly. She moderates an online writing workshop for Black writers: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deGriotSpace.
Trish Ayers is a published essayist and award winning poet and playwright whose one-act plays have toured throughout the U.S. and Japan. Her poems have been published in Poetry as Prayer, Appalachian Women Speak, Appalachian Women’s Journal, The Appalachian Connection, and are part of the theatrical piece, Mountain Women Rising and were in the 2007 New Mummer’s Exchange program in NYC. Her essays have been published in three books in The Rocking Chair Series and her plays will be published in two upcoming anthologies.
Jade! (Jade D. Banks) is a publisher, writer, poet, arts educator, community worker and author of ON BEING FAT, BLACK AND FEMALE. Founder of Iman Books, she is publisher/executive editor of the literary journal, SIGNIFYIN' HARLEM, as well as the youth literary journals, KEEP IT REAL!, SLAMMIN'! and CYPHER! Additionally, Jade! was a poetry/spoken word artist-in-residence for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Junior Scholars Program) and also serves as lead teaching artist and exhibit educator for the HARLEM IS... public art exhibit.
Danielle Yvette Barren is an English major at Temple University and a Philadelphia native. Currently, she is trying to decide what she will do after graduation. She's realizing that while the starving artist thing is cute, it won't get the bills paid.
Lynn Bartels lives in Ohio with her two college age sons, one cat and one dog. Semi-retired, she works as a substitute teacher when the mood strikes. During the summer she is a Guest Instructor at the Thurber House Children's Summer Writing Program. A new writer, she has yet to accumulate any publishing credits – until now.
Lauren Beatty, 26, grew up in a small Kansas town reading magazines, slinging ice cream and dreaming of escape. She now lives in a different small Kansas town and works at a university. She still likes ice cream.
Joan Bedinger talks too little and thinks too much about pointless things. She is a freshman in high school and has loved reading and writing ever since she learned how. Today she lives in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, and subsists on a diet of vegetarian food, words, music, and cynical idealism.
Shaindel Beers’ poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry Miscellany, the minnesota review, and The New Verse News. She is currently a professor of English at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon, in Eastern Oregon’s high desert and also serves as Poetry Editor of Contrary (www.contrarymagazine.com), and as a Poetry Reviewer for Bookslut (www.BookSlut.com).
Maureen Brady is the author of the novels, Ginger's Fire, Folly, and Give Me Your Good Ear, and the short story collection The Question She Put to Herself, as well as 3 books of nonfiction. She has been awarded grants by The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, The Barbara Deming Money for Women Fund, NYFA, New York State Council on the Arts Writer in Residence, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship for The Tyrone Gutrie Centre in Ireland. She teaches creative writing at NYU and The New York Writers Workshop at the JCC of Manhattan and is currently at work on a novel.
Antoinette Brim teaches Creative Writing, Literature and African American Studies at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, Arkansas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Antioch University/ Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Language with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Webster University. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Harvard University W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow (Summer Institute 2006). She is also a recipient of the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown (July 2007). Her poetry has appeared in various journals, magazines and anthologies.
Kirsten Brooks was born in Fairbanks, Alaska on September 2, 1990. She has four younger sisters, a dog and two cats. Her father is in the Air Force, which has allowed her family to leave all over the world, including the Azores. Kirsten has been writing since elementary school and is currently earning good grades at Meade Senior High.
Sarah Browning is coeditor of D.C. Poets Against the War: An Anthology and coordinates the group of the same name. Her first book of poems, Whiskey in the Garden of Eden, was published by The Word Works in 2007. She is the recipient of an individual artist fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and the People Before Profits Poetry Prize. She hosts the Sunday Kind of Love poetry series at Busboys & Poets and is organizing Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, to be held in Washington, D.C. in March, 2008.
Courtney Burback resides in Orange County, CA, where she attends Chapman University. Her stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Playgirl, Reptiles Magazine, and True Romance. She values intelligence and authenticity above all else. She has a wonderful relationship with carbs.
Cindy Childress served as Poet-in-Residence for the Pinellas County Girl’s Facility 2002-3. Her poetry was recently published or accepted for publication in Panowama, Women. Period., Third Wednesday, Touchstone, Rock and Sling, Epicenter, and others. Awards include the Marcella Seigel Memorial Award and the third place Christina Sergeyevna Award. She teaches writing and literature courses at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she’s completing a creative dissertation for her Ph. D. in English.
Tanisha Christie is an interdisciplinary performing artist and educator. A member of Actor’s Equity, she co-wrote Memory Is A Body Of Water, a multimedia production that has been seen at the NY Fringe Festival, DC Arts Center, and the Nat’l Black Theatre Festival. Based in New York City she is currently the Artistic Associate at the Village Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia. With a BFA from Arizona State in Theatre & MA in Media Studies from the New School, her work has been recognized through an Artists Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Puffin Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Andrea' Clark is a senior at Meade High School - Class of ‘08. Born and raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, she has five brothers. Andrea is the only girl.
Cathryn Cofell is a highly successful and in-control nonprofit executive, wife and mother from Appleton, WI. . .ok, maybe just mildly successful and somewhat stressed, but making a decent go at it. Nights and weekends, the poet comes out to play for readings, workshops and advocating for the arts. Her work is widely published in Prairie Schooner, New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Phoebe, and others. Her fourth book, Sweet Curdle, was released by Marsh River Editions in 2006, with a fifth forthcoming from Parallel Press.
Cydney Cottman is an 8th grade student at the Young Women Leadership
Helen Davies is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in London with her partner and two young children, and is currently working on her first novel. Her website is under construction at www.helendavies.com.
School in New York City. She enjoys reading, writing, and singing.
Kimberly Dixon has been a Poetry Fellow at African American literary journal Callaloo's annual writing workshop, published in international literary magazine Versal, performed as a 2004 and 2005 finalist in the Guild Literary Complex's annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards and is currently a featured poet in the Guild's performance poetry "incubator" project. She also holds degrees in theater, psychology and Afro-American Studies from Yale, UCLA and Northwestern. Many of her pieces feature child or child-like characters; she is fascinated with the honesty they demand in their voices and stories.
Liz Dolan is a Pushcart nominee in poetry, fiction and non fiction, has published poems, memoir and short stories in New Delta Review, Rattle, Harp Weaver, The Cortland Review, Illuminations, Prism International Quarterly, Philadelphia Stories and Natural Bridge, among others. A fellowship winner from the Delaware Division of the Arts, her work in Mudlark was chosen for The Best of the Web by Web Del Sol. She is most proud of the alternative school she ran in The Bronx and her eight grandchildren who live on the next block in Rehoboth and who keep her young.
Cath Drake has earnt most of her living from writing and communications. She specialised in environmental issues in her native Australia for about almost a decade where she won awards for her writing and radio programmes. She has written everything from nature trails, to radio programmes, newspaper and magazine articles, pamphlets and books. Cath moved to London in 2001 and now works part-time in a children’s charity in PR, runs creative writing workshops and writes poetry and short stories. She is part of a performance poetry collective, Malika’s Kitchen, whose anthology A Storm Between Fingers has just been published.
Elizabeth Farrell's work has been published in Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, Animus, Calliope, The Onset Review, and others. She has work appearing in the anthology, Poem, Revised, due in Fall of 2007. She has been Writer-in-Residence in several schools where she resides in Massachusetts. Formerly, she was an advertising copywriter in Chicago.
Yael Flusberg began writing creatively in her late 20s to help her understand why her family's history played a powerful role on her own choices, including her activist work with immigrants. Her memoir essays, poetry and reviews have been published in anthologies and journals including America: What's My Name?, DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology, Growing Up Girl, Lilith, the Potomac Review, and Travelers’ Tales, among others. She recently completed her first poetry collection, Stones Left on Graves. Yael makes her home in Washington, DC, works as a coach and consultant with social change organizations and leaders; teaches yoga; and is a co-founder of Sol & Soul, a nonprofit which nurtures and promotes emerging and seasoned artists of conscience.
K. Coleman Foote, a writer from New Jersey, recently completed a 2007 Hedgebrook writing residency and was a 2002-03 Fulbright Fellow in Ghana. Her writing has appeared most recently in Seal Press's Homelands anthology, Crab Orchard Review, and babel, and is forthcoming in In the People's Hands zine. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University.
Charniece N. Fox is a writer most of the time, but at least three nighs a week you can find her featuring on her red couch watching her kids dance uncontrollably to Green Day and occasionaly joining in on her skilled air guitar. Her other hats include poet, teacher, and CEO of Straight, No Chaser Films.
Meghan Fox grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and now lives in Ohio. Her work has appeared in StoryQuarterly and is forthcoming in The Journal.
Lezlie Frye is an activist, performance artist, poet and scholar. Frye has performed at numerous artistic and cultural events, including the Society for Disability Studies National Conference in 2005. Frye is currently a doctoral student in the American Studies Program, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, at New York University. Frye’s work explores intersections of dis/ability, race, gender, sexuality and nation, with particular interest in nation-building film, neoliberalism and citizenship, and the politics of life and death.
Jeannine Hall Gailey is a Seattle-area writer whose first book of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, was published in 2006 by Steel Toe Books. Poems from the book were featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac, Verse Daily, and 2007's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She won a Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant in 2007 and recently joined the core faculty at Centrum for their Young Artists Project, where she teaches and mentors junior high and high school students.
Karolina Golik was born in Krakow Poland in 1982, but moved to Canada at 4 years old. Her father suffers from bipolar disorder and she has inherited it, which has its share of struggles and accomplishments. Karolina is now 25 and attends university to pursue a degree in the fine arts.
Ellen Hagan is a writer, actress and educator. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can be seen in Failbetter, Check the Rhyme and upcoming in: Submerged: Tales from the Basin and PLUCK. She has received grants from the KY Foundation for Women and the KY Governor's School for the Arts. Ellen holds an MFA in fiction from The New School University, and recently finished her first full-length novel entitled BLUSH.
Christine Hamm is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University. She recently won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Rattle, and over 90 others. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and she teaches English and poetry writing at Rutgers University. The Transparent Dinner, her book of poems, was published by Mayapple Press. Christine was recently named runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens, NY.
Turquoise C.A. Hayes, 32, is a graphic designer, poet, author, and artist residing in the DC Metro area. Writing since the age of 15, this single mother of one, published her first book, Torridblue: The Undercurrent in November 2007. You can often find her touring the open mic scene, wearing her signature color, in DC and Maryland.
Niki Herd has published work in forums such as From the Web: A Global Anthology of Women’s Political Poetry, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Autumnal: A Collection of Elegies on compact disc, Kalliope, PMS: poemmemoirstory, 10x10.8, Xcp: Streetnotes Biannual Electronic Exhibition Space, and Black Issues Book Review. She has served on the board of Kore Press, an independent feminist publisher, was nominated for a Pushcart Award and is currently a Cave Canem Fellow.
Sarah Herrington is a poet and prose writer. Her work has appeared in the book Bowery Women, in dozens of print and online journals from smallspiralnotebook to Altar Magazine, and on several stages, including the Cornelia Street Cafe, St. Marks Poetry Project, and Bowery Poetry Club. Sarah has worked in the editorial departments of Scholastic, Inc, Viking Children's Books, and for New York City's largest Creative Writing school, Gotham Writers' Workshop. She currently works with Girls Write Now, teaching and mentoring teenage girl writers, and with the non-profit organization Community Word Project, teaching creative writing to NYC public school second graders. She received her degree in English and Creative Writing from New York University. Sarah lives in New York City and online at www.sarahherrington.com.
Linda Oatman High is an author of books for children and teens, as well as the author of "The Hip Grandma's Handbook" and founder of The Hip Grandmas Club. Linda is also a journalist/songwriter/poet/playwright who teaches writing workshops and presents at schools both nationally and internationally. Info may be found on www.lindaoatmanhigh.com.
Carol Hill is a writer, teacher, future MacArthur Fellowship winner (do they take bribes?), transplanted east coaster from D.C., living in San Francisco. Her main project is writing Black Girl stories for the Black Girl in all of us. BA Wellesley College, MA SFSU.
Janis Butler Holm lives in Athens, Ohio, where she has served as Associate Editor for Wide Angle, the film journal. Her essays, stories, poems, and performance pieces have appeared in small-press, national, and international magazines. Jonesing for Samantha, a one-act play, will appear at Manhattan Theatre Source in September.
Latea Hunter is 14 years old and attends the Washington Middle School for Girls. She was born and raised in SE DC. She likes to write poetry and is working on a story called "Run and Hide."
Tanya Leigh Jansen is an aspiring writer and single parent. She still enjoys making wishes on dandelions and splashing through puddles in the rain. Her passions include dancing and chocolate. She currently lives in Oakland, CA with an endless source of inspiration, her teenage daughter, Tabitha. Tanya attended UC Berkeley where she studied French and Mass Communications.
Lisa Joyner, freelance writer and poet, was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She earned a BA in Political Science from Central State University in Ohio. She is an activist who tackles issues in a fashion that she has termed “visual poetry” - bordering on fantasy. Recently published in Growing up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces, she also has a self-published book of poems, Magnolia. Lisa has dug her toes in the soil of Washington, DC, where she shares an abode with her Maltese puppy, Sophie.
Stephanie L. Kemp is a writer originally from Seattle, Washington. Her poems have been published in numerous journals, both online and in print. She hopes to one day publish a book of her poems and conquer the open mic. Currently, she lives in Colorado.
Keturah Kendrick is an artist and educator who currently resides in New York City. Receiving a B.A. from the University of New Orleans in 1997 and an M.A. from New York University in 2005, Keturah has done stand up comedy and written and starred in her own one-woman show. Her humorous insights on life and learning have appeared in Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices From Marginalized Spaces, The Louisiana Weekly and Salon.com. Keturah is a native of New Orleans the Beautiful. She can be reached at keturah.kendrick@gmail.com.
Kathy Kim was 39 when she started writing. It opened a portal to a creative life that had lain dormant through many years of schooling (bachelors degree in Biology-Harvard, masters degrees in business and public health-U.C. Berkeley), career ladder climbing (healthcare management and consulting), and family making (husband Tyrone, teenaged children Tyler and Kassina). Now, she enjoys the mix of writing (at home with love and support of family), teaching (still at UCB), and consulting (still in healthcare), the result of a fortunate life.
Penelope Laurence was born in Australia but moved to Canada in 2006 after falling in love with the country on a ski trip. She has worked as a TV script editor, writer, travel and food journalist. Currently she lives in Montreal.
Cole Lavalais received her MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University. She was awarded the 2003 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and an Honorable Mention in the 2007 Hurston Wright Award for College Writers. Cole is also a 2007 fellow of the Callaloo Writer’s workshop. She is currently pursuing her PhD in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also teaches creative writing and literature.
Sarah Layden’s poetry can be found in Tipton Poetry Journal; look for her fiction in Artful Dodge, Vestal Review, Contrary, Diet Soap, Hecale and 42opus. Her most recent nonfiction appears in Opium Magazine, flashquake and Indianapolis Monthly. A graduate of Purdue University's MFA program, she is working on a novel and teaches writing at IUPUI and Marian College in Indianapolis.
Jamie Lee is sixteen and lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her family. In addition to reading and writing, she enjoys tennis and music.
Gabriela N. Lemmons was born and raised in South Texas, a stone's throw from El Rio Grande. As an only child of migrant workers, she was raised in a household where Spanish was the spoken language. Her father was a remarkable storyteller and after his passing, she was inspired to write down his recollections. Gabriela enjoys writing bi-lingual poetry and memoirs. Gabriela is a founding member of the Kansas City Latino Writers Collective. Her future plans include applying for an MFA in Creative Writing.
Sandra J. Lindow lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, Wisconsin where she plants perennials and goes running outside barefoot in 18 degree weather to keep a lawn service from blowing away her mulch. She has published five chapbooks of poetry and has won many awards including the 2004 WRWA Jade Ring for Poetry. Presently she teaches part-time at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, writes and works as a freelance editor. Her website is http://www.wfop.org/poets/lindowsa.html.
Ellaraine Lockie lives in California and writes award-winning poetry, nonfiction books, magazine articles/columns and children's stories. She teaches a poetry/writing workshop on the creative process for schools, writing groups and libraries, and she's also a professional papermaker who teaches workshops on the craft. A webpage for both writing and papermaking are: www.musesreview.org/ellarainelockie.html.
Aimee Lone is a developmental psychologist, queer theorist, rock climber, surfer, and mother. She teaches at the college level and writes frequently about gender, violence, and the body. In recent years she has focused on conquering a variety of addictive behavior patterns, most recently the need to see her name in lights.
Lacey Louwagie, 27, is an online editor for New Moon Girl Media, a feminist company dedicated to "bringing girls' voices to the world" through multiple media platforms. She loves cuddling with her cats, making mix CDs, and reading. She thanks Call to Action, a nonprofit organization pushing for progressive change in the Catholic Church, for making her dream of attending a woman-celebrated catholic mass a reality.
Brandi MacDonald ran and edited the literary journal Seldom Nocturne from 2002 through 2005. She has also run poetry groups, youth slams, and workshops in the southern New Hampshire area, has featured in New Hampshire and in Berkeley, CA, and has spoken as a guest artist for Radio Literature in Madison, Wisconsin. Her most recent work has appeared in SubtleTea Magazine and The Pebble Lake Review. Brandi lives in New Hampshire with her two children, where she is pursuing
Noemi Martinez is a Chicana/Boriqua single mami writer/activist living on the borderlands in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. By day she does human trafficking outreach and by night she is the director of a grassroots community group, CAFE Revolucion (Community Activists for Equality). She also likes to bake vegan banana bread and cookies. She has written the zine Hermana, Resist since 2000.
Laini Mataka born and miseducated in baltimore, md. first album, BLACK IVORY by wanda robinson, was recorded in 1971. radio show host of program, STILL BLACK AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, on morgan university's station. with BLACK CLASSIC PRESS, published NEVER AS STRANGERS, RESTORING THE QUEEN, BEIN A STRONG BLK WOMAN CAN GETCHU KILLED. been teaching writing in and out of school settings since 1996.
Lynnette Mawhinney and her tatas live in Philadelphia with her cat, Sasha. She is Assistant Professor fo Education at Lincoln University. She received her Ph.D. in Urban Education at Temple University. Her research focuses on teachers’ lives, pre-service teacher preparation, and conflict resolution education. Lynnette spends her free time writing about her anatomy, going to the movies, and reading books of substance.
Caridad McCormick is the recipient of a Florida Artists Fellowship for poetry. Her writing has appeared in Susan B. & Me: An International Collection of Personal Writings and Photos by Women of All Ages, CALYX, The Seattle Review, Slipstream, Spillway, Green Hills Literary Lantern and others. She is a professor of English at Miami Dade College. She resides in Miami, Florida with her partner and son.
Colleen McKee lives in St. Louis. She is the author of My Hot Little Tomato (Cherry Pie, 2007), a collection of poems about food and sex. She is also co-editor of Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women's Encounters with Health Care in America. You may contact her at lilyofthegutter@yahoo.com.
LaDeidre McKenzie is 17 years old and in the 12th grade. She has been writing poems and short stories since the 6th grade. She is the youngest and only girl out of four.
Rachel McKibbens is a Brooklyn-based writer who is a poetry mentor for Urban Word NYC. She has been teaching in-school and after school workshops at Bellevue Hospital for four years. She is a 2007 New York Foundation of the Arts poetry fellow and a 2007 Pushcart nominee.
Melissa Dione McEwen lives in Bloomfield, CT with her son Izzy. She reads whenever she isn't working and writes whenever she isn't reading. So far, she has been published in The Litchfield Review and The Fairfield Review (Connecticut literary magazines) and in Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art.
Denise Miller, a poet and community activist received her B.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A in literature. She produces poetry, art, public readings and exhibitions on the connections between resistance to slavery and resistance to domestic violence. She co-owns an arts venue called Fire in Kalamazoo, MI. with her wife of four years, Dr. Michelle S. Johnson.
Sage Morgan-Hubbard is a native Washingtonian and a 2005 graduate of Brown University, with a degree in Performance Studies and Ethnic Studies.
Bonnie J. Morris is a women's studies professor on the faculty of both Georgetown and George Washington universities, and is the author of seven books, including two Lambda Literary Award finalists [GIRL REEL and THE EDEN BUILT BY EVES.] Her essays, short stories, poems and erotica have been published in over sixty anthologies of women's writing. Having grown up near the ocean, she enjoys working as an occasional guest lecturer for both Olivia Cruises and the Semester at Sea program, and in summer labors backstage at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Dr. Bon can be seen in the award-winning documentaries "Radical Harmonies" and "IF Women Ruled the World," as well as an extra with Jodie Foster in "Contact."
Andrea Nicki has a Ph.D. in feminist philosophy. She is a published poet and essayist. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, most recently, in the journal Sinister Wisdom and in the anthology Women Write Their Bodies: Stories of Ilness and Healing by Kent State University Press. She just completed her first poetry book, which is currently under review.
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz is a Queens, NYC born and bred Nuyorican mami, Espanglish poeta, freelance writer, and all around rabble rouser. Currently she’s the East Coast Editor for VivirLatino.com and maintains her own personal blog at MamitaMala.com. She has been featured on NPR, in The Washington Post, TuVida Magazine and Latina Magazine. Her poetry has been featured and heard in Queens Theatre in the Park, D'Antigua, Boricua College, and Cemi Underground. Deesha Philyaw is the mother of two daughters and is a freelance writer who has written for Essence magazine, Wondertime magazine (a Disney publication), and for The Washington Post. Deesha's writing has been anthologized in LiteraryMama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal Press).
trina porte lives in the woods of upstate new york with her wife and cat. her work resides in many forms and places, including brooklyn, minneapolis, tiberius, and udaipur. she has ridden the cyclone rollercoaster at coney island, which was much less scary than her five years of heterosexuality. she owes her sanity to andrea dworkin and her life to her mother renee, both of whom she misses every day. she dedicates all her work to those who don’t have a voice of their own.
Jayne Pupek is a novelist and poet from Richmond, Virginia. Her novel, Tomato Girl, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books (2008). Also forthcoming in 2008, from Mayapple Press, is Forms of Intercession, her first book of poems. Primitive, a chapbook, is available through Pudding House Press.
Jessy Randall is the Curator of Special Collections at Colorado College. Her first full-length collection of poems, A Day Boyland, is now out from Ghost Road Press. Her website is http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall.
Sonya Renee is easily the most distinguished, accomplished and recognizable female in the world of Slam Poetry, and rightly so. The socially conscious wordsmith became the U.S National Poetry Slam Champion only 14 months into her slam career in '04, and followed this amazing achievement with back to back top 8 finishes at the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship, a 2nd place finish at the International Poetry Slam Championship in 2005, and an International Championship at the Four Continents International Slam in 2006. She performed for 1 million spectators in Washington D.C. alongside presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton at a historic March for Women's Lives. Her work has appeared in several publications, translated into Dutch and German and has most recently appeared in the book Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces and Spoken Word Revolution: Redux. Her poetry has been used as curriculum at the University of Santa Barbara, as an HIV education resource with HIV Campus Education and as Artist for Choice with Choice USA, the reproductive rights organization started by Gloria Steinem a nd has also seen commercial success with appearances on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and the hit reality series "Monique's F.A.T Chance" on the Oxygen Network
Adrienne Ross' essays have appeared in Cezanne's Carrot, Fourth River, Tikkun, Under the Sun, EarthLight, Many Mountains Moving, Slow Trains the American Nature Writing anthology series and other publications. She received a Seattle Arts Commission literary award and Artist Trust Literature Fellowship. An earlier version of "Flight of the Wild Parakeet" appeared in the anthology An Intricate Weave: Women Write on Girls and Girlhood.
Carly Sachs' first book of poems the steam sequence won the Washington Writers' Publishing House Book Prize. She is currently an Arts Fellow at The Drisha Institute in New York City.
j.scales is a multi-talented healerartist who enjoys creating poetry and music for herself and others. as a musician & vocalist, she has performed at various venues, including the kennedy center, nuyorican café, house of blues in new orleans, and “serafemme” (queer women of color festival) in west hollywood. she synthesizes her musical & production skills to enlighten many, while empowering various marginalized communities. j. gives MUCH thanks to the Creator for the continual development of her many gifts! (www.myspace.com/jscalesonbass)
Irene Sedeora's poems have appeared in small literary magazines, online and also in anthologies such as Working Hard for the Money, by Bottom Dog Press. She lives in Morton, IL where wild animals sometimes pay pre-dawn visits to the backyard bird feeders.
Julie Senger is a wife, mother of two children, and a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Professional Writing program at Kennesaw State University, near Atlanta, GA. She is also the President of the Graduate Writers Association chapter at KSU and the Editor of the Red Clay Review, a literary magazine which publishes work exclusively written by current graduate students who reside in the United States. When not writing, Julie competes in sprint triathlons benefiting women's charities and she also competes in taekwondo tournaments.
Julieann Shargel is a poet, writer, therapist, and educator. She has written and produced two documentaries for National Public Radio, and is hoping to have a children's book published soon.
Shoshauna Shy’s poems have been published in numerous journals and magazines which include Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, Rosebud and Poetry Northwest. She is the author of What the Postcard Didn’t Say released by Zelda Wilde Publishing, and three other collections of poetry. Shoshauna works for the Wisconsin Humanities Council in Madison, Wisconsin.
Ethel Morgan Smith, Associate Professor of English at West Virginia University, is the author of From Whence Cometh My Help: The African American Community at Hollins College. Smith has been published in national and international journals. She has received many awards and fellowships, including a Fulbright to the University of Tubingen in Germany, and a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in Bellagio, Italy.
Rose Solari is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Orpheus in the Park (2005) and Difficult Weather (1994). Her poems have appeared in many journals here and in the U.K., including Parnassus, Gargoyle, Poet Lore, The Mississippi Review, The Potomac Review, and Nth.
J. A. Stein is currently finishing a M.A. degree in Women's Studies at Texas Woman's University with an academic emphasis in Queer Theory. S/he spent 11 years in the Military Intelligence Corp, eventually serving in the Pentagon, Washington, D. C. Through this avenue, systems of privilege, inequality, oppression, and power became clearly defined. Today, s/he is a transgendered activist, poet, painter, and theorist who strongly believes that there is a rich diversity of beautiful women that exist outside the male/female dichotomy.
Virginia Chase Sutton won the 2007 Morse Poetry Prize for her book What Brings You to Del Amo (University of New England P). Her first book is Embellishments (Chatoyant 2003). Five times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her poems appeared in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Antioch Review, Western Humanities Review and many others. She has been the Louis Untermeyer Scholar at Bread Loaf, won first prize for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, winner of the Paumanock Visiting Writers Series, and other competitions.
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who has featured at over 225 performances worldwide including 3 seasons of "Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry." Her first book of poems will be published in 2008 by UpSet Press. For more info, www.yellowgurl.com or www.myspace.com/yellowgurl_poetry.
Candace Tyler is a liberated single mother living in the DC area. She considers herself an artist, probably because she attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia but she never finishes any of her creative projects. She is also known to spout out bits of pertinent information at random intervals. She has lived all over the United States but considers DC her home base.
Mariposa "Mari" Villaluna is currently residing in Washington D.C. but is originally from San Francisco, CA. Mari graduated from Mills College, where she studied Government and how it intersects with Ethnic Studies. Mari is a Mestiza and currently advocates and organizes around Indigenous rights, workplace justice, violence against women, and youth issues. Mari also enjoys performing spoken word pieces to continue the oral story-telling tradition that has been passed down from her elders and ancestors.
Jackie Warren-Moore is a Poet/Mother/Wife/Playwright/ten year former newspaper columnist for the Syracuse Post Standard. She conducts readings and workshops in schools, colleges, prisons throughout the country. Her work is widely published in various anthologies both nationally and internationally. She is a Writer-In-Residence for the Syracuse School District.
K.C. Washington, a Brooklynite by way of California, K.C. has lived, loved, and written in New York for the past fifteen years. A lover of the word, whether it be clean as a babbling brook or as purple as a violet, she has published poetry, literary fiction and nonfiction in such venues as AOL Style Blog, “Urban Latino Magazine,” “The Nubian Gallery,” and “Cover Magazine.” Her debut novel Mourning Becomes Her was published by the Harlem Writers Guild Press in June of 2006.
Kristy Webster is a writer of flash fiction, magical realism, prose poetry and creative non-fiction. Her short fiction is featured in the on-line magazines BROAD and PopulistArt.Com, (under separate pen-name, Kristy Gonzalez). She is also the editor of Quillbillies Magazine (www.myspace.com/quillbillies) a magazine devoted to publishing the voice of the working class writer. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University and interns for Copper Canyon Press in Port Townsend, Washington.
Nicolette Westfall wrote poetry while living on an isolated Northern Canadian First Nation Rez. She's been published in 63 Channels and Word Riot.
Jesica "Jesi" Williams, 21 years old, is a 2008 graduate of Western Kentucky University where she studied Creative Writing, TV Production and Communication Studies. Born and raised in Paris, Kentucky, the second of six children. She began her writing career at an early age with grade school work published in local newspapers and poetry winning local awards. Her poem "Blink Of An Eye" outlining the events of September 11th was published in local papers while she attended Paris High School. Jesi's focus soon shifted to writing fiction, and while attending college had published in Zephyrus, WKU's literary publication, where her short story "Gano Street" was awarded the 2007 Ladies Literary Fiction Award. She is now actively pursueing a career in tv/film writing and producing.
Mary Williams is a senior at Ossining High School. She works with poet Brenda Conner-Bey at the Hudson Valley Writers Center and her work has been featured in Teen Ink, Vox and Pam Obsley's anthology Speaking Me. Mary enjoys traveling and playing on swing sets.
Latiffany Wright currently resides in Illinois with her daughter Mekaylah Amber. She works with an organization dedicated to improving literacy among youth. She is completing her first novel.