Joy tabernacle KMT-Battle iz a Two-head Blackwoman, Opulence, mother, lover & crowned Hoodoo Queen. As a writer, she has received residencies and fellowships from Heinz, MacDowell, Callaloo, Vona & Periplus. They are published in many places, including Callalloo and Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color , Pluck! The journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture , Jazz and Culture , Hayden’s Ferry Review , Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and more. She is the winner of th

Dr. Malika Booker is a UK-based British-Caribbean poet and the award-winning author of Breadfruit and Pepper Seed. Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). The Anthology - Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen was recently published to celebrate Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twentieth anniversary . Her p

Bettina Judd is the award-winning author of Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought and patient. Bettina Judd is an interdisciplinary writer, artist and performer whose research focus is on Black women's creative production and use of visual art, literature, and music to develop feminist thought. Her book Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought (Northwestern University Press, December 2022) argues that Black women’s creative p

Jasmine Harris is a multi-genre writer and educational specialist featured in the Hidden Sussex Anthology , Prometheus Dreaming , Syndrome Magazine , and several others. She most recently was the recipient of the Mid-America Arts Alliance Catalyze Grant 2024 and served as the 2023 Arts and Science Center of Southeast Arkansas Arts in Education Artist in Residence. Harris focuses her writing on celebrating Black culture and community, intersectional identities, speculative an

Rakaya Fetuga tells stories through prose, poetry, and performance. From the age of 17, Rakaya landed upon London’s poetry scene, and since then, her words have taken her across the country and the world, performing on stages from Qatar to Cuba. Rakaya’s writing has spearheaded an array of campaigns for the UN, L’Occitane and Cartier amongst others. Receiving writing awards from the New York TV & Film Festival (2024) and Royal Holloway University of London (2015 & 2016), as

Allie Morgan (she/her) is a writer, director, and producer in Chicago, IL. She studied entertainment business at Los Angeles Film School and screenwriting at New York Film Academy.  She has written and directed numerous award-winning short films and a proof of concept, and recently started her own production, Muffy Film Productions, which focuses on platforming marginalized filmmakers. When she is not writing and directing her own projects, she also loves assistant directing

Chennelle Channer is a Jamaican-born poet and writer. She immigrated to America in her early childhood and was raised between the restless hum of Brooklyn and the measured cadence of South Carolina. Her Caribbean roots shape the rhythm and voice of her storytelling and Jamaica remains the place where she feels most at home. She earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from SUNY Binghamton and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Liberal Studi

Leslie T. Grover is an award-winning writer, scholar, and activist. Her novella, The Benefits of Eating White Folks, marked her entrance into historical fiction, following her work in academic and nonfiction writing. A southern Black writer, her short stories have appeared in Waxing and Waning Literary Journal , Testimony , and as the winning entry in Owl Hollow Press’ The Takeback Anthology . In 2024, she won Amazon Kindle Vella’s Grand Prize for her short story, “Little G

Ashlee Haze is a Telly Award-winning poet, librettist, and spoken word artist from Atlanta by way of Chicago. Her work has been featured...

Deesha Philyaw is the award-winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies . Deesha Philyaw ’s debut short story collection, The...

Jessica Araújo (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of English at the Community College of Rhode Island. She has her MA in Literature and...

Tanya Shirley is a Jamaican poet, Cave Canem Fellow, and the author of two poetry collections; She Who Sleeps with Bones and The...

Nijla Mu'min is an award-winning writer, performer, and filmmaker whose feature film Jinn premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and...

Tatiana Johnson-Boria (she/her) is the author of Nocturne in Joy (2023), winner of the 2024 Julia Ward Howe Book Prize in poetry. She's...