These are the authors that Tony Robles and Martha Cinader have interviewed on the Listen & Be Heard Hour for Readers & Writers, or authors that we, or our guests, have mentioned. You will find most of their books on our Affiliate Bookstore at Bookshop.org. Proceeds from purchases will go to Listen & Be Heard Radio, toward the construction of a non-commercial community broadcast radio station in Greenville, SC at 92.1FM, WLBH.
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Malaya Ulan – Poet, Author, Spokesperson
Malaya Ulan, the 2024-2025 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, is a multidisciplinary poet influenced by her Filipino American heritage. She has delivered a TEDx Talk on poetry as activism and has spoken at the United Nations. Co-founder of AniMalayaWorks, she aims to connect communities through storytelling and poetry.
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Mitos Suson- Author
Mitos Suson, an acclaimed author, blends personal reflection and historical insight in her works such as A Doorbell, A Dictator, A Dad and Shards of Time: A Memoir. A Fellow of the Silliman National Writers Workshop, she co-authored the cozy fantasy novel ‘A Practical Guide to Sigbin Keeping,’ celebrated for its emotional depth.
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Literature and Public Lands Celebration in Flatrock, NC
Tony Robles speaks to Joel about his book, In The Absence Of Belief at the Literature & Public Lands Celebration in Flatrock North Carolina. The event took place April 18th 12-4pm, it celebrated the local authors, artists, and public lands bringing in people from all over the country for an experience to meet their favorite…
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Iyas Sartawi, Founder of Project Hope for Palestine
Iyas Sartawi is a displaced Palestinian from the West Bank, currently living in the Bay Area of California. He is helping people in Palestine and in the United States in the midst of the current chaos, and is the founder of Project Help for Palestine.
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Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer
Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer
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Javier Famania – Athlete and Producer
Javier, 17, is an athlete and producer at listen and be heard . He will be playing college baseball At SUNY Cortland and enjoys video editing and listing to music. He goes to the institute for collaborative education and is in his senior year.
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Kenneth Yu – Author
Kenneth Yu is an award-winning author from the Philippines whose short fiction has seen publication in his home country as well as overseas in the USA, Canada, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
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Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour – Poet
Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour is a Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Artist from the Midwest now living in Santa Cruz. Since 2017, he has been a resident of The Tannery Artist Lofts with his partner and fellow artist, Rica Smith De La Luz. Together they form Sacred Poets, sharing their practice through books, prints, and apparel.
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Dr Kim McMillon – Author, Producer, And Playwright
Dr. Kim McMillon, a producer and playwright, has multiple notable works including the anthology Some Other Blues and Black Fire—This Time. She created the one-woman show Confessions of a Thespian and directed Voyages, both showcased at various theaters. Additionally, her essay “Ancestor as Refugee” was published in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies.
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Mikey Cullen – Author, Poet, Actor, and Musician
Mikey Cullen, a dynamic Dublin-based poet and multidisciplinary artist, blends his talent as a teacher, actor, filmmaker, and lyricist to create compelling poetry that resonates personally and universally. Known for his emotionally charged performances, Mikey’s work has been featured in various anthologies and publications, and he has performed at major Irish festivals. He actively participates…
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Meredith Leigh – Author, Consultant, Educator, Non-Profit Professional
Meredith Leigh, with over 20 years in sustainability and food systems, has owned farms, a restaurant, and engaged in diverse consulting. An award-winning author of “The Ethical Meat Handbook” and “Pure Charcuterie,” she is transitioning back to the nonprofit sector while pursuing fiction writing in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Cipriano Belser – Co-Founder Black Lantern Books and The Legacy Library
Cipriano Belser is a low wage worker, turned Organizer, turned co-operative owner. Born and raised in the Bay Area, he has resided in Los Angeles for the last 15 years. In his time in LA he went from working retail jobs to becoming a labor organizer, which led him to want to use his organizing…
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Micah Franklin Johnson – Artist, Producer, Athlete
Micah Franklin Johnson, an artist, athlete, and podcast producer from Brooklyn, embraces evolution in his creative journey. Raised in Harlem, he engages with the Summer Youth Program and finds inspiration in his explorations of Chinatown and Brooklyn, aspiring to impact the creative landscape despite his youth.
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Karla Brundage – Author, Poet
Karla Brundage is founder West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange and author of three books of poetry, including award winning, Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), Swallowing Watermelons, and co-author of Mulatta–Not so Tragic. Her work as editor and publisher for Pacific Raven Press has and Tar Baby Quarterly included authors in the Bay Area, Hawaii,…
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Vanessa Lee Miller – Poet
A poet, playwright and freelance journalist, Lee-Miller was born and raised in Hilo. She often travels to perform Hawaiian in verse and drama at literary events across the country and to venues from working-class pubs to the British Library and Pembroke College, Oxford. Often described as a Hawaiian language activist, she describes her decades-long struggle…
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Julia de Burgos – Poet
Julia de Burgos was a Puerto Rican poet whose work engages themes of feminism and social justice. Since her death, she has been widely recognized as the contemporary foremother of Puerto Rico and of the Nuyorican poetry movement in New York. In her work, Burgos asserted her African lineage, advocating for anti-imperialism and Puerto Rican…
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Laura Lengnick – Soil Scientist, Author, Award Winning Researcher
Laura Lengnick, a renowned soil scientist, has three decades of experience in sustainability in U.S. agriculture. She has received national recognition for her work, including a USDA Honor Award. As the founder of Cultivating Resilience, she collaborates on climate resilience projects and authored the influential book, Resilient Agriculture.
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Del Gonzales – Actor, Theater Maker
Del Gonzales is a Filipino Latino American actor and theatre maker based in New York City. His work is shaped by training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Hamilton College, along with clown training and four years of improv with Hamilton’s troupe Yodapez
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Tony Cranston – Author, Teacher, and Storyteller
Tony Cranston is a renowned author, storyteller, and teacher with over 40 years of experience worldwide. Originally stationed in the UK, Cranston has traveled to over 50 cities, reading stories and collecting many as he goes.
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Saumya Choudhury – Poet, Organizer
Saumya Choudhury, an Indian poet and cultural organizer, founded Delhi Poetry Slam in 2013, promoting performance poetry in India. After transitioning to digital platforms, she created Poem Pajama and engaged with Santhali tribal communities. Recognized internationally, she hosts writing retreats and teaches poetry, supporting emerging writers and exploring themes of identity and loss.
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Joe Siple – Author
Long before The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride began winning awards and hitting Amazon bestseller lists, Joe Siple could be found at his computer, developing his voice as a writer. It took seventeen long years from the day he started his first fiction manuscript until Murray, Jason, and Tiegan propelled him to bestseller status.…
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Author, Activist, Teacher- Seth Donnelly
Seth Donnelly is a public high school teacher in the Bay Area of California, where he has taught social studies for nearly two decades. He is also an activist with the Puerto Rican independence and Black liberation movements, doing solidarity work with prisoners from those movements. Donnelly has been involved in the Haiti Action Committee…
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Author, Researcher, Professor – Angela Marino
Angela Marino’s research focuses on contemporary Venezuela and political cultures of the Southwest, Caribbean, and Latin America.
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International Criminal Law Expert – Olga Kavran
Olga Kavran is a Fellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel completing a PhD on the topic of international criminal courts’ obligation to provide information to the public, and the Founding Director of IUSTICOM, established in 2021 as the first non-governmental organisation dedicated to communicating justice.
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Zakiyyah Modeste
Zakiyyah’s creative journey began as a child when, at the age of three, she won her school’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Contest. Early exposure to the arts through Mount Vernon’s Creative Arts Program allowed her to act in plays alongside talented peers, including saxophonist Michael Philips. Outside the program, she trained under Tina Satin—who also taught…
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Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole
Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole is a songwriter, screenwriter, author, Spoken Word poet, and Sí.Nik Productions and L.A. Sugar Factory founder. Her work is featured in Silver Tongue Devil Anthology (Amazon), Poets Without Limits IncarNATION Anthology, Mo’ Joe Anthology along with The Voices Project, Learn to Love and Enhance Online Magazines.
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Cultural Activist, Aerialist Sarah Sophie Flicker
Sarah Sophie is an activist, producer, writer, filmmaker, cultural organizer, creative director, and aerialist. Founder and Creative Director of celebrated political cabaret group, The Citizens Band, she is the Editor-At-Large for Violet Book. Her writing can be found at Hello Giggles, Rookie Magazine, W Magazine, Vogue, Refinery29, The Cut, Cosmo.com, Violet Book, Stylist, Rizzoli’s publication…
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Laura Cassidy – Writer, Publisher
Laura Cassidy is publisher and co-editor at the literary journal and small press Banshee, where along with her co-founders she was named a Bookseller Rising Star. Her novels for young adults were published by Penguin Ireland, and she is a recipient of the Cecil Day Lewis Literary Bursary Award and an Arts Council of Ireland…
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Mahreen Sohail – Writer
Mahreen Sohail was born in Pakistan. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College where she studied as a Fulbright scholar; and was a Writing Fellow at A Public Space and a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Her work has appeared in Granta, the Kenyon Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology (XLII), and elsewhere. She lives in…
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Laura Jean McKay – Writer
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country – winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia and her latest collection…
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Mary O’Donnell – Writer
Mary O’Donnell has written award-winning poetry, novels, short fiction collections and dynamic essays. Published fiction includes the novels The Elysium Testament and Where They Lie. In 2023 she received an An Post/Irish Book Award for her political poem ‘Vectors in Kabul’. In 2026 Wake Forest University Press (USA) will publish her ninth poetry collection, Tenderness. In May this year, a…
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Patrick Cotter – Poet
Patrick Cotter is an Irish poet, born in Cork City where he still lives and works as a literary festival organiser and editor. His poems have been published in journals such as the Financial Times, The London Review of Books, Poetry and Poetry Review. He is a recipient of the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. His…
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Ni Rivera – Multi-media Storyteller
Nilsa Rivera “Ni” tells new and multi-media stories about housing, food, and climate insecurity. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Tahoma Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Huffington Post, 50 GS Magazine, Six Hens Literary Journal, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, Selkie Literary Magazine, Writing Class Radio, and Turning Dark into Light: A Mental Health Anthology.…
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Brett Cook – Interdisciplinary Artist, Educator
Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. His elaborate installations feature painting, drawing, and photography to tell pluralistic stories with broad representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy and contemplative strategies—along with…
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Mary Morrissy – Writer
I’m an award-winning Irish novelist (The Hennessy Award, Lannan Foundation Award) and short story writer, the author of four novels, Mother of Pearl, The Pretender, The Rising of Bella Casey and Penelope Unbound, as well as three collections of short stories, A Lazy Eye, Prosperity Drive and Twenty-Twenty Vision
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Vanessa Onwuemezi – Writer
Vanessa Onwuemezi is a writer living in London. She is the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize in 2019 and her work has appeared in literary and art magazines, including Granta, Frieze and Prototype. Dark Neighbourhood, her debut story collection, was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2021, and was shortlisted for both the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Edge Hill Prize…
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Gina Chung – Writer, Editor
Gina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey currently living in New York City. She is the author of the novel Sea Change, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and a B&N Discover Pick, and the short story collection Green Frog, which was a Good Morning America Book…
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Pyeng Threadgill – vocalist, composer, author, video artist, and voice and movement teacher
Pyeng Threadgill is an American vocalist, composer, author, video artist, and voice and movement teacher. With a deep belief in the transformative power of music and movement, she creates what she calls New Porch Music. Drawing on the musical traditions of the African Diaspora—from Black American Folk and Soul to Jazz and improvisation—Pyeng uses her…
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Bev Grant – social activist, feminist, labor singer/songwriter, photographer, filmmaker
Bev Grant is a veteran social activist, feminist, labor singer/songwriter, “cultural worker” from Park Slope Brooklyn, where she has lived for over 40 years. She is the co-creator of a women’s labor history multi-media presentation entitled “We Were There!” has recorded six albums, including a companion cd for the show, called “We Were There!”, a…
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Marque Gilmore – drummer, percussionist
Internationally acclaimed drummer/percussionist; future-music & live electronic music performance pioneer; professional international solo artist, producer, arranger and innovative cultural arts practitioner; Musical/Creative Director for the music/multi-media performance project DRUM-FM and Stockholm-based live arts-education organization and interactive concept-club KULT-U-REAL™.
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Dao Strom – poet, musician, writer, interdisciplinary artist
Dao Strom is a poet, musician, writer, and interdisciplinary artist who works with three “voices”—written, sung, visual—to explore hybridity and the intersection of personal and collective histories. She is the author/composer of several hybrid-literary works, including including the poetry-art collection, INSTRUMENT, and its musical companion of song-poems, TRAVELER’S ODE, and the forthcoming TENDER REVOLUTIONS/YELLOW SONGS…
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Charlie Rosario
Charlie Rosario is a graphic designer, visual artist, drummer and poet of Puerto Rican parentage who was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950. In the late 1960s he began his career in Latin album cover art with a psychedelic painting for Tito Puente (The King Tito Puente / El Rey Tito Puente, Tico Records, 1969),…
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Andrew Lam
Andrew Lam fled Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 when he was eleven years old. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, studying biochemistry, but abandoned plans for medical school after graduation. He entered the creative writing program at San Francisco State University instead. While still in school, he…
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Gail Ward
Interesting it has been! Gail Ward’s career has been a tapestry of diverse experiences, from dance to music production, international events, and multimedia content production. She has worked with renowned artists and managed large-scale events, always embracing change and creativity.
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Fortuna Sung
Fortuna was born in Hong Kong in an artistic family. Father John Chia Wen Sung was a film director, a producer and an educator. Mother was an actress. When Fortuna was 12 years old, she moved to Rome, Italy with her family where her father received an education in classical music and film.
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Matthew Garrison
Born 1970 in New York, Matthew Garrison, along with his mother Roberta Escamilla Garrison and sister Maia Claire Garrison, spent the first seven years of his life immersed in a community of musicians, dancers, writers, visual artists and poets. After the death of his father Jimmy Garrison (John Coltrane’s bassist), his family relocated to Rome, Italy…
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Deepika Singh – Poet
Deepika Singh is an Indian native from Margherita, Assam. By profession, a teacher. She is a budding poetess. Her writings are a reflection of the everyday experiences she has. She thinks the correct words have the power to transform our culture. Her works were featured in various national and international publications.
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Megan Marshsall – Biographer, Essayist
Megan Marshall is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Margaret Fuller: A New American Life as well as Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
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Trinh Mai – Multi-media Artist
Trinh Mai is a second-generation Vietnamese American visual artist who examines the refugee and immigrant experience, then and now. Through a vast breath of media, she helps tell the stories of we, the enduring People, while focusing on our witnessing of war, …
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Vi Khi Nao – Poet, Writer
Vi Khi Nao is a multidisciplinary writer working across poetry, fiction, theater, film, and collaborative art. She won the 2016 Nightboat Poetry Prize for The Old Philosopher and the 2017 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize for A Brief Alphabet of Torture. Her latest novel, The Italy Letters, was published by Melville House.
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Yvette Murray, Poet
Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and writer. She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and others. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is a board member of the…
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Opal Palmer Adisa – Writer, Phd
Diverse and multi-genre, Opal Palmer Adisa, is an exceptional talent, nurtured on cane-sap and the oceanic breeze of Jamaica. Currently the Director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of West Indies.
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Jen Soriano, Writer
Lan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism and coeditor of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. Her poetry has appeared in Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, Bold Words: Asian American Writing…
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Kim McMillon – Author, Educator, And Playwright
Dr. Kim McMillon, a producer and playwright, has contributed to various anthologies, including Some Other Blues and Black Fire—This Time. Her notable works include the one-woman show Confessions of a Thespian and the play Voyages. She also authored the essay “Ancestor as Refugee” for the SAGE Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies.
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Lan Duong – Poet
Lan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism and coeditor of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. Her poetry has appeared in Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, Bold Words: Asian American Writing…
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Cal Hoffman – Author
CAL HOFFMAN is a writer, educator, and actor. He graduated from Catholic University and attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, as well as the MFA Fiction Writing Program at Columbia University. He has taught English and creative writing to children of immigrants, private school students, and young people in foster care.
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Anderson Zaca, Photography
Anderson Zaca lives in NYC and holds a degree in photography and film production. He is the author of *Block Party NYC: Soul of Summer* and *Fire Island Invasion: Day of Independence*. Zaca has exhibited his work internationally and traveled extensively for various photo documentaries, assignments, and commercial projects. His commercial clients include Nike, Budweiser,…
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Russell Frederick, Photography
After the first day of class Russell knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life and he never looked back. At this time he was working in healthcare and in nursing school. A career as a nurse would be steady work but a career as a photographer had much more longterm…
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Mark Talbert – Landscaper, Author
Mark graduated from the University of Kentucky with a Master’s Degree in Agriculture. He served twenty-nine years as a county agent for Clemson University Extension Service in three counties with responsibilities in horticulture, agriculture and 4-H. He taught Master Gardeners and Pesticide Management. He wrote weekly/monthly articles for local and State Newspapers,
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Preston Lauterbach – Author
Preston Lauterbach is author of the American music classic The Chitlin’ Circuit (2011) and the history of the main street of Black America, Beale Street Dynasty (2015). His latest, Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King published in January of 2025.
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Arnoldo García – poet, musician, visual artist, human rights organizer, restorative justice practitioner/trainer
Arnoldo García is a community-based poet, musician, visual artist, human rights organizer and a dedicated restorative justice practitioner/trainer. He has migrant roots that stretch from south Texas to the Pacific Northwest and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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James Baldwin – Author
When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Baldwin was living in California in a rented house in Los Angeles, where he was writing a screenplay based on Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He received the tragic news while visiting London with his sister Gloria. Many of Baldwin’s extended visits to the United…
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Monica Macansantos – Author
Monica Macansantos is a 2024-2025 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, and was recently named a 2025 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow at the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia. She is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father’s Kitchen (Northwestern University Press/Curbstone Books, May 2025) and the story collection, Love and Other Rituals (Grattan Street Press,…
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Wendy Loomis – Pianist, Composer
WENDY LOOMIS is an award-winning San Francisco-based composer, pianist, producer, and educator. She has released 20 CDs to date and performs nationally and internationally with various ensembles in the genres of poetic jazz, new age, and world music.
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Ozier Muhammad, Photojournalist
Ozier Muhammad graduated with a B.A., in photography from Columbia College in Chicago. He has been a photojournalist for more than 3 decades. His first job was as a staff photographer at Ebony Magazine. Ozier joined The Charlotte Observer in 1978, went to Newsday in 1980 and has been at the New York Times since…
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Dorsía Smith Silva, Author
Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), which was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. She is a multi-nominated Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Professor of…
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Matthew Shipp – Pianist, Author
With a unique, instantly recognizable style, pianist Matthew Shipp has been active on the international jazz scene since late 1980s. His boundary-less musical approach crisscrosses free jazz, elliptical post-bop, and modern classical music. He served as pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet during the early ’90s before leading his own dates and recording duos with a…
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Freda Epum- The Gloomy Girl Variety Show
Freda Ndidi Epum (Free-duh Nn-dee-dee Ay-poom) is a Nigerian-American writer, artist, and consultant from Tucson, AZ. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Vol 1. Brooklyn, Entropy, Bending Genres, Cosmonauts Avenue, Heavy Feather Review, Nat.Brut, Third Coast, Atticus Review, Rogue Agent, and the 2020 Bending Genres Anthology. She received her MFA from Miami University…
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Richard Clements – Pianist, V.P. & Founder, Barry Harris Institute of Jazz
Richard Clements is a pianist. In the 1970’s Richard played in various R & B bands in the northern California area. In the early 1980’s, he moved to New York City to pursue his Jazz studies with Jazz master pianist Barry Harris. Richard has worked with Clifford Jordan, Abby Lincoln, Leon Thomas, Charlie Persip and His…
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Vida Cruz-Borja – Fantasy and Science Fiction Author
Vida Cruz-Borja is a Filipina fantasy and science fiction writer, editor, artist, tarot reader, and conrunner. Her short fiction and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Expanded Horizons, and various anthologies. She won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Creative Nonfiction for “We are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive…
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C. L. Willis- Author
C. L. (Cecil) Willis, a native of Canton, North Carolina, is professor emeritus of sociology and criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. After retiring, he moved back to his beloved Southern Appalachian mountains. He lives with his daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren in Alexander outside Asheville, NC. Hillbilly Odyssey is his first book.
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Suzette Clark Bradshaw – Poet, Sculptor
Suzette Clark Bradshaw from western North Carolina, is a self-taught poet and sculptress. Her poems have appeared in Dead Mule, Branches, Women Speak, and more.
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Donna Janell Bowman – Author
Donna Janell Bowman is an award-winning author of books for young readers, including Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills, co-authored with Olympian Billy Mills and illustrated by S.D. Nelson; Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness, illustrated by Daniel Minter; Abraham Lincoln’s Dueling Words,…
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Elizabeth Perlman – Writing Teacher
Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising…
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Julie Patton – Poet
Julie Ezelle Patton is the author of The Flower Poem (Tender Buttons, 2024), Notes for Some (Nominally) Awake (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), and “Car Tune” & Not So Bella Donna (Belladonna*, 2003). A 2024 special issue of Chicago Review is devoted to their poetic, performative, and visual work and building maintenance project.
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Judy Talaugon -Land Protector, Storyteller
Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight…
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Jonathan Thirkield – Poet
Jonathan Thirkield is a poet and digital artist. He is the author of two collections—Infinity Pool (University of Chicago Press Phoenix Poets 2024) and The Waker’s Corridor, winner of the 2008 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets.
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Mosab Abu Toha – Poet
MOSAB ABU TOHA is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha…
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Victoria Santa Cruz – Poet, Choreographer, Costume Designer
In 1958, together with her younger brother Nicomedes, she cofounded the first black theater company in Peru, Cumanana, which she codirected until 1961. The three-act musical play Malató (1961)—which she wrote, choreographed, and staged—revealed “the historically prevalent intimate relations between slave and master that were omitted from the official history of Peruvian haciendas and biological mestizaje.”
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Genny Lim – SF Poet Laureate
Genny Lim is an American poet, playwright, and performer. She is the ninth poet laureate of San Francisco, California, and the first Chinese American in the role.She was the Chair of Community Arts and Education Committee, and Chair of the Advisory Board for the San Francisco Writers Corps.
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Roy Ayers – Vibraphonist, Vocalist
Now in his fourth decade in the music business, Ayers, known as the Godfather of Neo-soul, continues to bridge the gap between generations of music lovers. In the 60’s he was an award-winning jazz vibraphonist, and transformed into a popular R&B band leader in the 70’s/80’s.
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Craig Harris – Trombonist, Composer
Craig Harris, trombonist, composer, bandleader, and sonic shaman. … his musical journey began with the Sun Ra, … place among creative music’s … leaders.
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Nikki Giovanni – Poet
… I have been awarded … 7 NAACP Image Awards which makes me very very proud. I have been nominated for a Grammy; been a finalist for the National Book Award… authored 3 New York Times and Los Angeles Times Best Sellers, highly unusual for a poet.
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Wordslanger, A poet for the people.
Producing Director of The Lower Bottom Playaz, the Founding Artistic Director of The Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, Associate Director of Recovery Theatre Inc, and Recovery Theater: San Francisco., Founder of the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater Day Camp free for kids, Artist Educator, independent Arts Programming Consultant.
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Peter Jamero – Author, Human Services, Human Rights
Peter was born on August 27, 1930, in Oakdale, California to parents Ceferino Jamero Sr. and Apolonia Madelo Jamero. He graduated from University of California Los Angeles with a Master’s degree in Social Work. Peter’s professional achievements were often Filipino firsts as a human services leader and top-level government executive. He served as a King…
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Alice Walker – Writer, Poet, Activist
Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1983 and the National Book Award.
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Zora Neale Hurston – Author, Anthropologist
I remember the very day that I became colored. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando.
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Brian Kimmel – Author
Brian Kimmel is a multiheritage Indonesian American, and grandchild to Pacific Northwest author, Martha Walandouw Lohn. He co-authored Lohn’s memoir, Blue Skies, Troubled Waters, and edited the first Indonesian language version. A poet, memoirist, lyricist, composer, musician, and scholar-practitioner, Kimmel guest lectures and recitals internationally on narrative technologies and the expressive arts.
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Caitlin Jans – Publisher, Teacher, Writer
Caitlin Jans is the co-founder of Authors Publish Magazine and the Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish, as well as The Poetry Marathon. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and has taught at Seattle Pacific University, and Berkeley College, Her work has been published widely including: The Rumpus, Poets & Writers, The Adroit Journal,…
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Blagovesta Momchedjikova – Poet, Author, Professor
Blagovesta Momchedjikova, PhD, is a lover and writer of cities, who has been teaching at the Expository Writing Program at New York University since 1998. She is the editor of Captured By The City: Perspectives in Urban Culture Studies (2013) and Streetnotes: Urban Feel (2010); co-editor of Urban Habits (2025),
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Alejandro Murguía – Author, Poet Laureate
Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His non-fiction book The Medicine of Memory highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and the first director of The Mission Cultural Center.
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Martha Cinader, Author, Performance Artist
Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows…
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Billy Mills – Athlete and Author
At the 1964 Olympics, Billy Mills shocked the world and came from behind to win the gold medal in the 10,000 meters race. At the time, he set a world record of 28 minutes, 24.4 seconds and is still the only American to ever win a gold medal in the 10K event.
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Barbara Tran – Author, Editor
Barbara Tran is an immigrant. And a settler. She writes in multiple genres. Her debut poetry book, Precedented Parroting, is a Finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award. She is currently at work in collaboration with Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn on the screenplay for Nguyễn’s debut feature film.
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Monique Truong – Writer, Editor
Monique Truong is the Vietnamese American author of the bestselling, award-winning novels The Book of Salt, Bitter in the Mouth, and The Sweetest Fruits and the co-author of the children’s picture book Mai’s Áo Dài. She’s also a former refugee, essayist, avid eater, lyricist/librettist, and intellectual property attorney (more or less in this order).
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Tony Robles – Poet, Author
Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books…
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Marissa Eller – Author
Marissa Eller is a novelist with chronic pain and an abundance of emotions. She holds a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, which she uses in her work as an academic consultant. She resides in Hickory, North Carolina with her family and…
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Marivi Soliven – Author
Marivi Soliven is a Filipina author based in America where she works as an interpreter. Her background as a writer includes having taught creative writing at the University of the Philippines, the Ayala Museum, and the University of California in San Diego. The Mango Bride has earned her a Hedgebrook writing residency last August 2012,…
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Crystal Simone Smith – Author, Poet, Editor
Crystal Simone Smith is the author of three poetry chapbooks, Routes Home (Finishing Line Press, 2013) Running Music (Longleaf Press, 2014), and Down To Earth (Longleaf Press, 2020). She co-authored, One Window’s Light, A Collection of Haiku, edited by Lenard D. Moore (2017), which won the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award for Best…
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Meg Reid – Publisher
Meg Reid is the Executive Director of the Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the Publisher of Hub City Press, where she finds and champions new and overlooked voices from the American South, including Carter Sickels, Drew Lanham, Ashley M. Jones, and Anjali Enjeti. She is outspoken about the need for transparency…