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Contributors Bios
Amber Atiya is a poet , performer , and self-taught artist-in-training . Her work has appeared in Boston Review , Nepantla : A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color , PEN America , and elsewhere . A proud native Brooklynite , she is a member of a women ’ s writing group and author of the fierce bums of doo-wop published by Argos Book in 2014 .
Ariana Brown is an Afromexicana poet from San Antonio , Texas , with a B . A . in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies from UT Austin . She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize , a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion , and is currently working on her first manuscript . Her work is published in Huizache , Rattle , Borderlands : Texas Poetry Review and is forthcoming in ¡ Manteca !: An Anthology of Afro-Latin @ Poets from Arte Público Press .
Sarita Nyasha Cannon is Associate Professor of English at San Francisco State University where she teaches 20th-century American Literature . She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with an A . B . in Literature , earned a Ph . D . in English from University of California , Berkeley , and held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in American Indian Studies at University of Illinois , Urbana-Champaign . Dr . Cannon ’ s scholarship has appeared in Interdisciplinary Humanities , The Black Scholar , Asian American Literature : Discourses and Pedagogies , Callaloo , and MELUS . She is also a classically trained soprano who sings with various groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area .
Kieyan Chauhan is a 17 year old , self-taught artist from the South East of England . He specialises in portraiture and also creates music under the name ‘ Kayncee ’. He is currently a full time student studying music and art and is an avid Hip-Hop fan . Find him on Facebook under ‘ Kieyan ’ s Drawings ’ and on Instagram @ kieyanchauhan .
DJ Lynnée Denise , an artist and scholar , incorporates self-directed project based research into interactive workshops , music events and public lectures that provide the opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with under-explored topics related to the cultural history of marginalized communities . She is inspired by underground cultural movements , the 1980s , migration studies , theories of escape , and electronic music of the African Diaspora . With support from the Jerome Foundation , The Astrae Lesbian Foundation for Justice , Idea Capital , The BiljmAIR artist residency ( Netherlands ) and The Rauschenberg Artists as Activists Grant , she has been able to resource her performative research on a local , national and global level .
Joel Dias-Porter ( aka DJ Renegade ) was born and raised in Pittsburgh , PA , and a former professional DJ . From 1994- 1999 he competed in the National Poetry Slam ,
african Voices and was the 1998 and 99 Haiku Slam Champion . His poems have been published in ; Time Magazine , The Washington Post , POETRY , Mead , The Offending Adam , Best American Poets 2014 , Callalloo , Ploughshares , Antioch Review , Red Brick Review , Asheville Review , Beltway Quarterly and several anthologies .
Jocelyn Goode : See The Gallery .
Jonathan Guy-Gladding ( JAG ): “ The best thing that ever happened to me was being sent to the Caribbean in 1999 … I applied to be a volunteer in the Peace Corps and had the great fortune to be sent to the island of St . Lucia in July of 1999 . Serving as a woodwork instructor in the beautiful southern coastal village of Laborie , I found there an unending supply of rich subject matter in the faces and postures of the uniformed schoolchildren , the people going about their daily lives , and the traditional cultural aspects that make St . Lucia such a wonderful and distinctive place .
Shani Jamila is an artist and cultural worker whose travels to more than forty countries deeply inform her collage , text and documentary photography practice . Her work , which addresses themes of identity , political imagination and witness , has been exhibited at institutions including the Reginald F . Lewis Museum , Smack Mellon Gallery , SCOPE Art Fair , Corridor Gallery , the City College of New York and Princeton University . The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture filmed an interview about her life and work for their inaugural exhibit “ A Changing America : 1968 and Beyond .” A Fulbright scholar with over a decade of leadership in designing and executing programs that use the arts to catalyze social change , Jamila currently serves as a managing director of the Urban Justice Center in New York City .
Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina from New York City . She is a graduate of Drew University ’ s Poetry & Poetry in Translation MFA program & a Canto Mundo Fellow . Her poetry has appeared in The Wide Shore , Prairie Schooner , Gulf Coast and among other publications . Her first collection of poetry The Pink Box is published by Willow Books and was long-listed for the PEN America Open Book Award .
Aimiende Negbenebor : Creator of the award-winning short film Asa , A Beautiful Girl , Aimiende Negbenebor Sela hails from Benin City , Nigeria . After moving to New York in the late ‘ 90s , she went on to earn a degree in Computer Engineering and Literature from Stevens Institute of Technology . After a number of years of trudging along in the I . T . world , she made a life-altering decision to leave and pursue her true passion — the arts .
Julian Randall is a performance poet , educator , and arts education advocate . A Chicago native , Randall has pursued a career in poetry since 2011 . A two-time national college slam competitor Randall also