Nandi Comer is an award-winning poet and essayist. She was appointed as Michigan's poet laureate in 2023, becoming the state's first poet laureate since the 1950s. Nandi Comer  served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of the state of Michigan from 2023 to 2025. She is the author of the chapbook,   American Family: A Syndrome   (Finishing Line Press). Her debut poetry collection, Tapping Out  (Triquarterly)  won the Society of Midland Authors Award and Julie Suk Award. She has received

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

Patricia Spears Jones is a celebrated poet, playwright, and educator. She served as the New York Poet Laureate from 2023-2025. Arkansas-born Patricia Spears Jones has lived and worked in New York City since 1974.  She is a poet, playwright, educator, cultural activist, and anthologist and was appointed New York State Poet (2023-25) and a Poet Laureate Fellowship from The Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation. She is the recipient of the 2017 Jackson Poetry Priz

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a Trinidadian poet, teaching artist, and theatre performer who lives in New York. Her latest collection, The...

Angela Jackson is an award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright who has published three chapbooks, four volumes of poetry, and served...

Soni Brown writes from the complicated spaces between countries, between family members who should love each other, between the person...

Imani Nikelle is a southern-born, East Coast dwelling poet & filmmaker. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Callaloo , The Columbia Review , Poet Lore , and elsewhere. She is currently earning an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University. AMERICAN QUILT mailmen, porches the flag. sweet southern thistles of americana                              my ass. plains of sun-kissed nothing. soiled soil & the pickling. blessed hangs the fruit. this time  not a body. blackened l

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a New York Times bestselling novelist and essayist, best known for her novels Wench , Balm , and Take My Hand....

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