Visiting Writers & Artists – 2018

ALYSIA ABBOTT
Alysia Abbott is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and an ALA Stonewall Award winner and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. She grew up in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the only child of gay poet and writer, Steve Abbott. As a journalist and critic, she's written for The New York Times, Real Simple, Vogue, Marie Claire, OUT, Slate, Salon, TheAtlantic.com, TriQuarterly and Psychology Today, among other publications. She holds an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from New School University and was a contributing producer at WNYC Radio. Her first full-length book, Fairyland was completed with the help of a Ragdale Fellowship and the wonderful staff at W.W. Norton. She's presented Fairyland at bookstores, libraries, literary festivals and universities across the United States as well as on NPR's Weekend Edition, Fresh Air, The Leonard Lopate Show, The Brian Lehrer Show, KQED's Forum, and the BBC's Outlook, among other venues. The French edition of Fairyland was published by Edition Globe on March 12, 2015 with a series of events in Paris. Alysia is also co-founder of The Recollectors Project, dedicated to remembering parents lost to AIDS and supporting the children they left behind. You can learn more about this project by listening to her interviews on The Leonard Lopate Show and Here & Now.

HANIF ABDURRAQIB
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His most recent book, Go Ahead In The Rain, a biography of A Tribe Called Quest is a New York Times Best Seller, and the upcoming They Don't Dance No' Mo', is due out in 2020. by Random House. Yes, he would like to talk to you about your favorite bands and your favorite sneakers.

STEPHANIE ABRAMS
Recognized as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Travel. Honored by Travel Weekly for award-winning marketing, public relations and ad campaigns in travel industry. Executive Producer and Host/Presenter of nationally syndicated radio shows, Travelers411 and Travel WITH Stephanie Abrams … and with this philosophy: Failure is not an option.

SHAMS AHMED
Shams Ahmed, a Bangladeshi-origin music director, vocal producer, and singer is making headlines in the world of Western music for his exceptional composition and extraordinary musical productions. Co-founding various musical properties, including a girl group, Citizen Queen, a kids' music brand, Acapop! KIDS, and producing for the highly popular a cappella group, Pentatonix, Shams has already left an indelible mark in the music industry.

PHILLIP ALEXANDER

DUDLEY ALEXSIS
An independent filmmaker and visual artist. Dudley Alexis is both a cultural anthropologist and historian who sees his world through unique multicultural eyes. His mission as a Creative is to mine the wealth of hidden details that provide meaning to the lives of those often written off by the mainstream, finding in their stories, real treasure. His gift is in gaining the trust of others who then poignantly share their personal stories, often filled with tragedy and triumph. Alexis vividly portrays their drive to thrive and to live with dignity and equality in a world that would too often attempt to keep them marginalize. Born in Haiti, Alexis immigrated to the United States in his teens, attending high school and college in Miami where he began studying fine art. His body of work includes a vast number of short documentaries including stories about the First Nation Micousukee Tribe of Florida, made while employed by Micousukee Magazine. He went on to write, film, direct and edit his first full length documentary, ‘Liberty in a Soup’ completed in 2016.

MELANIE ALMEDER
Melanie Almeder’s first book of poems was shortlisted for the Walt Whitman Award and was given the Editor’s Prize by Tupelo Press. Her individual poems have received awards, been published widely in a range of journals, including Poetry, The Seneca Review, 32 Poems, Five Points, and The American Literary Review, and been nominated by editors for Pushcart Prizes. Her writings on art have appeared in national and international books and exhibitions. A believer in the crucial interconnections between writing, the arts, and community, Melanie Almeder has collaborated with arts organizers to organize community arts projects in Roanoke, Virginia, Miami, Florida, and Sitka, Alaska. She has received teaching awards from the University of Florida, Roanoke College, and, in 2011, the Virginia State Council of Higher Education named her as one of the top professors in Virginia. Presented in partnership with O, Miami Poetry Festival 2018.

MARCUS AMAKER
Marcus Amaker takes daily naps. He's also a dad, husband, Charleston's first Poet Laureate, an opera writer, and an Academy of American Poets fellow. He’s published ten books, released 36 albums of electronic music and three albums with a Grammy Award winner. He’s also the graphic designer of No Depression, the national roots music journal. His poetry has been recognized by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, NPR, Button Poetry, American Poets Magazine, The Kennedy Center, and more.

ABRAHAM AMAYO
GRAMMY Nominated Composer of the “Fu Chronicles” Best Global Music Album Former Lead Singer of #Antibalas for 23 yrs. linktr.ee/amayomusic. (He left Antibalas in 2021)

ELOISA AMEZCUA
Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. Her debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, her second collection of poems, Fighting Is Like a Wife, was published by Coffee House Press (April 2022). ​

BRIAN ANDERSON
Presented in partnership With O, Miami Poetry Festival.

JESSIE ASKINAZI
Jessie Askinazi is an interdisciplinary creative and communications manager. She has worked in photography, performance art, journalism, poetry, film, design and the contemporary art world. Jessie studied at the Atlantic Theater Company's performing arts conservatory in New York City. She is most notably affiliated with Purple Fashion Magazine, where she has documented cultural events for several years. Jessie also dedicates her life to social justice and activism, currently working with the East Los Angeles Women's Center; a crisis center for women who have experienced sexual or domestic violence. Most recently, she collaborated with Pussy Riot to make a video about threats to the Violence Against Women Act. Her upcoming poetry chapbook "Ear Tagging" will be published through Shirt Pocket Press, along with a short film she made about the collection.

ANDREA ASSAF
Andrea Assaf is a writer, performer, director and cultural organizer. She’s the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Art2Action Inc., and the National Coordinator of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation (an Art2Action collaboration with Pangea World Theater). She is currently Artist-in-Residence and guest faculty at the School of Theatre & Dance, University of South Florida (Tampa).  Andrea has served as a consultant with Equity Quotient (EQ), Alternate ROOTS, the Arts & Democracy Project, and more. She is a former Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater (2004-09), and former Program Associate for Animating Democracy (2001-04).  Andrea has a Masters degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in acting, both from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She  currently serves on the Board of CAATA (Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists), and is a voting board member of Alternate ROOTS. She served on the International Management Committee of WPI (Women Playwrights International, 2012-15), and is a member of RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers) Andrea’s original, full-length theater works include: DRONE, a new work in development, recipient of a FY2020 National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund commission and a 2019 New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Theatre Project award.

NEIL BALDWIN
A native New Yorker, Baldwin received a PhD in Modern American Poetry from SUNY/Buffalo. He is the critically-acclaimed author of biographies of Martha Graham, William Carlos Williams, Man Ray, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford; as well as Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God, and The American Revelation. Neil is the retired director of National Book Foundation and Professor Emeritus at Montclair University in New Jersey.

SCOTT BARROW

SCOTT BARROW has been working with Tectonic Theatre Project since 2005. His first collaboration with the company was working with Moisés on 33 Variations at Georgetown, and he stayed with Tectonic through its Broadway run and in Los Angeles. Scott did the first tour of The Laramie Cycle, followed by Moisés’ one act about the lunar landing, The Dead Man’s Curve. Currently he is part of the team collaborating on and performing in Andy Paris and Anushka Paris-Carter’s Uncommon Sense. Scott teaches Moment Work workshops for Tectonic all across the country, including most recently a year-long residency at Drew University, where he and Barbara Pitts McAdams helped students develop, fully design, and stage an adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. As an actor, Scott has also played major roles at the New York Theatre Workshop, Arena Stage, the Arden Theatre, Arkansas Repertory, Commonwealth Shakespeare, Hartford Stage, the Huntington, the Wilma Theater, the Mint, Nevada Shakespeare in the Park, DC’s Studio Theatre, New Rep, the Geva, the Olney, Portland Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Urban Stages, Trinity Rep, and Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, where he is an Artistic Associate. Drawing on more than two decades of experience as an uninterested and mediocre student, Scott has been developing alternative ways to engage students and creatively explore classroom subjects. With the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, Scott wrote, directed, and acted in the Professor Projector Film Series, and as director of education for Stages on the Sound, he provides year-long residencies in the arts to schools in the New York City area.

REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country.

For more than twenty-years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making.

In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

RONI BEN HUR
guitarist / recording artist / educator

Jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur has earned a sterling reputation as a musician and educator, renowned for his golden tone, improvisational brilliance, compositional lyricism and ability to charm peers, students and listeners alike. Eminent jazz critic Gary Giddins wrote in the Village Voice: “A limber and inventive guitarist, Ben-Hur keeps the flame alive and pure, burning in every note… He’s a guitarist who knows the changes and his own mind.” Roni — born in Israel in 1962 but a longtime American citizen, based in the New York City area — has recorded a dozen-plus albums as leader or co-leader, with The New York Times praising his “crisp, fluid style” and Time Out New York calling him “a formidable and consummately lyrical guitarist.” He has developed a rare facility in both straight-ahead jazz and samba/bossa-nova styles, underscored by his work with masters in each field, from bebop piano sage Barry Harris and winds ace Frank Wess to beloved Brazilian vocalist Leny Andrade and composer Marcus Valle. 

LAYLA BENITEZ JAMES
Layla Benitez-James is the author of God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode but He Had to Make Sure (Jai-Alai Books, 2017), selected by Major Jackson for Cave Canem’s 2017 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. Benitez-James has served as the Director of Literary Outreach for the Unamuno Author Series in Madrid and is the editor of its poetry festival anthology, Desperate Literature. Poems and essays can be found at Black Femme Collective, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latino Book Review, Poetry London, Acentos Review, Hinchas de Poesia, and audio essays about translation are available at Asymptote Journal. Benitez-James was a reviewer for Harriet Books in 2021-2022.

SANFORD BIGGERS
Throughout his work, Sanford Biggers (b. 1970; Los Angeles, CA) speaks to current social, political and economic happenings—and examines the contexts that bore them—through the interplay of narrative, perspective, and history.  His diverse practice positions him as a collaborator with the past through explorations of often overlooked cultural and political narratives from American history. Working with antique quilts that echo rumors of their use as signposts on the Underground Railroad, he engages these legends and contributes to this narrative by drawing and painting directly onto them. In response to ongoing occurrences of police brutality against Black Americans, Biggers’ BAM series is composed of bronze sculptures recast from fragments of wooden African statues that have been anonymized through dipping in wax and then ballistically ‘resculpted’. Following a residency as a 2017 American Academy Fellow in Rome, the artist recently began working in marble. Drawing on and playing with the tradition of working in this medium, Biggers creates hybridized forms that transpose, combine and juxtapose classical and historical subjects to create alternative meanings and produce what he calls “Chimeras”. As creative director and keyboardist, he fronts Moon Medicin, a multimedia concept band that straddles visual art and music with performances staged against a backdrop of curated sound effects and video.

CORY BOWLES
Cory Bowles is an African-Nova Scotian with roots among Black Loyalists, Maroons and the original French Colonies. Bowles has travelled the globe studying the roots of Black dance and music, particularly through his own family line. Bowles has a strong passion for his cultural background and the storytelling traditions of the African Diaspora. Best known as Cory in Trailer Park Boys, he also is the principal choreographer of Halifax-based Contemporary Dance Company Verve Mwendo, plays in the rock band Aide-De-Camp and voices the children's series Poko. In the mid-1990s Bowles gained some prominence as MC of hip hop act Hip Club Groove, performing under the name "Chek Love". The group released an EP on No Records and later a full length on Murderecords. The group toured Canada, often opening for other Halifax based bands such as Sloan. Bowles wrote, directed and narrated the feature film Black Cop, which won the award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival[3] and the John Dunning Discovery Award at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards. In 2019, Bowles directed Renee Joy and Nikki LeBlanc, two episodes in season[4] one of the Canadian TV series Diggstown.

BEN BRAM

PABLO BRESCIA

STACY BROWN

COLETTE BRYCE

JESSICA SUE BURSTEIN
Jessica Sue Burstein is an award-winning writer-director and actor-producer working in film and TV for the past 10 years. She co-wrote/directed the award-winning short film, "Abbie Cancelled" (Official Selection of Sundance FF and Best Short Film, Big Apple FF) and co-wrote the feature version based on the short which is in development. She wrote one of the storylines for the upcoming ensemble feature film "Mutual Friends" starring Michael Stahl-David and Caitlin Fitzgerald (Official Selection Seattle Int. Film Festival). Jessica wrote, directed, produced, and starred in her award-winning MFA thesis film, "Veronika's Birthday" (Best Direction/Performance Arizona Int. Film Festival & Best Student Film New Jersey Int. Film Festival). She is a former Co-President of CineWomen NY and has her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. While at MTV On-Air Promos, Jessica won Promax awards and special recognition in Digital Arts Magazine. After MTV, Jessica worked as a Sr. Writer/Producer/Director at Blue Room, a creative services agency in New York City. She is a Sr. Writer/Director for Syfy at NBC Universal and is writing her third feature film based on her short film "Chicken". When she's not making media she enjoys yoga, dancing, writing poetry, and swimming in the ocean. She lives in Brooklyn with her beautiful green-eyed kitty Lilly Anne.

AMBASSADOR ABENA BUSIA

MARCIA BUTLER

SARAH CAHILL
Sarah Cahill, recently called “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by the New York Times and “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, and Ingram Marshall, and she has also premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Toshi Ichiyanagi, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others. Presented in partnership with the FIU NODUS New Music Festival 2018.

NICOLE CALLIHAN

CHAZZ CHITWOOD
Chazz Chitwood is a 28-year-old gay writer living in North Miami Beach. He has his BA and JD from the University of Miami, and is a current MFA candidate at Florida International University. Miami-raised, Chazz is writing poetry, lyric essays, and fiction with an eye toward gender, sexuality, male relationships, hybridism, transhumanism, myth, science, and science fiction. Presented in partnership with Reading Queer 2018.

ERIN CHRISTOVALE  

MONIQUE CLASCA

BILL CLEGG

JENNY COLGAN

CARLOS ANDRÉS CRUZ

SILVIA CURBELO

KRISTINA MARIE DARLING
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of twenty-seven books, which include JE SUIS L’AUTRE: ESSAYS & INTERROGATIONS (C&R Press, 2017), DARK HORSE (C&R Press, forthcoming), and THE DISAPPOINTMENT ACTS (C&R Press, forthcoming). Her books have been described by literary critics as “haunting,” “mesmerizing,” and “complex.” Poet and Kenyon Review editor Zach Savich writes that her body of work is a “singularly graceful and stunningly incisive exploration of poetic insight, vision, and transformation.” Donald Revell writes of her SELECTED POEMS, “Here is a new tradition, alive in bright air.” Kristina’s books have also been reviewed widely in literary magazines, including The Boston Review, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, The Colorado Review, The Mid-American Review, Pleiades, and The Southern Humanities Review.

KAREN EBER DAVIS
Karen Eber Davis works with leaders who lead from vision, not fear. She helps organizations and businesses discover propulsion tools to grow their profits and performance.  As the leading authority on nonprofit revenue, she helps businesses and nonprofits engage with each other to create dynamic partnerships, that make an extraordinary impact. Presented with the Arts & Business Council of Miami.

TANYA DAWKINS

REINALDO DE JESUS

ROB DEITZ

ADELE DINERSTEIN

APRIL DOBBINS

ANDREW DOSUNMU

EMORGY DOUGLAS

ERIKA DREIFUS

MICHAEL ELLIOTT

SIMON FAITHFULL
Simon Faithfull’s practice has been described as an attempt to understand and explore the planet as a sculptural object – to test its limits and report back from its extremities. Within his work, Faithfull often builds teams of scientists, technicians and transmission experts to help him bring back a personal vision from the ends of the world. Faithfull was born in Braziers Park – a utopian community in Ipsden, Oxfordshire. He studied at Central St Martins and then the University of Reading . His practice takes a variety of forms – ranging from video, to digital drawing, installation work and writing. Faithfull is also a Reader of Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London. Presented in partnership with the ArtCenter / South Florida.

CAROLE FARLEY

MARCUS FARRAR

ZOLTÁN FEJÉRVÁRI
Winner of the 2017 Concours Musical International de Montréal for piano and recipient  of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, Zoltán Fejérvári has appeared in recitals throughout Europe and the United States in such prestigious venues as Carnegie’s Weill Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Gasteig in Munich, Lingotto in Turin, the Palau de Música in Valencia, the Biblioteca Nacional de Buenos Aires and the Liszt Academy in Budapest. He has performed as a soloist with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Hungarian National Orchestra, the Verbier Festival and Concerto Budapest Orchestras among others, under such conductors as Iván Fischer, Zoltán Kocsis, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, and Gábor Takács-Nagy. Since 2014 Zoltán Fejérvári, has been teaching at the Chamber Music Department of the Liszt Academy of Music. Presented in partnership with Miami International Piano Festival 2018.

WILLIAM FLYNN
Described as “playing a mean guitar” (Wichita Eagle), William Flynn is a Kansas-based guitarist and composer emerging onto the contemporary jazz community with an increasingly original musical voice. William’s recent professional engagements include sharing the stage with saxophonist Bob Reynolds (John Mayer, Snarky Puppy), as well as performances at The Blue Room (Kansas City), the Charlie Parker Celebration Festival (Kansas City), and the Wichita Jazz Festival. William’s playing and composing can be heard on the Artists Recording Collective label (Traveler, 2017), and Armored Records (The Songbook Project, 2016). Presented as part of The Betsy's Overture to Overtown Jazz Festival 2018.

SARA FRUNER
Sara Fruner was born in Riva del Garda (Trento) in 1978. She specializes in literary translation and has worked as a translator, editorial consultant and reviewer for classics. Her poems are in magazines and anthologies such as " Graphie", Poets in the Cinque Terre, Panunzio Prize, and she is the author of several short stories and novels. She worked as an editorial coordinator in CREATE-NET, an international research center in ICT; as a teacher at the Istituto Superiore Interpretatori e Traduttori in Trento; as speaker at international conferences on translation and literature; and at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles. Since 2016, she has lived in New York, where she writes for The Voice of New York, a bilingual online newspaper based in the United Nations, where she also collaborates with Cultural Liaison & Public Relations. She also writes for online magazine "Warehouse 26", under the heading "The Milkshake - The Side of Fru".

ALEANDER GAVRYLYUK

LISA GLATT

PETER GODWIN
Peter Godwin was born and raised in Africa. He studied law at Cambridge University, and international relations at Oxford. He is an award winning foreign correspondent, author, documentary-maker and screenwriter.He is the author of five non fiction books: 'Rhodesians Never Die' - The Impact of war and Political Change on White Rhodesia c.1970 - 1980 (with Ian Hancock), Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa (with photos by Chris Johns and foreword by Nelson Mandela), The Three of Us - a New Life in New York (with Joanna Coles) and Mukiwa, which received the George Orwell prize and the Esquire-Apple-Waterstones award. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun - a Memoir of Africa, won the Borders Original Voices Award, and was selected by American Libraries Association as a Notable Book winner for 2008. He has taught writing at the New School, Princeton and Columbia and was a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and currently serves as the president of PEN American Center.

ALON GOLDSTEIN

ALEX GREENE

AMANDA GRONICH

ALAN HELD

DAVID HERNANDEZ

ZACH HINES

JACK HIRSCHMAN

JOEL HOFFMAN

MARC IRWIN
Marc Irwin is a pianist, composer, arranger, and recording artist, Dr. Marc Irwin uses his diverse talents as a musician within the fields of contemporary, jazz, classical, theater, and world musics. Currently residing in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. Marc Irwin is a native New Yorker who has played for and with a variety of top performers. Presently, Marc Irwin is a pianist and musical director with The Capitol Steps, performing political satire throughout the 50 United States and Canada. Presented as part of The Betsy Hotel Overture to Overtown Jazz Festival 2018.

IRIS JAMAHL DUNKLE

TAYARI JONES
Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, February 2018). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University. Presented as part of the UM IBIS Reading Series.

MOISES KAUFMAN

ROGER KELLAWAY

HOLLI KITCHING

STEPHAN KOPLOWITZ

SANA KRASIKOV
Sana Krasikov's first book, ONE MORE YEAR (2008) explored the lives of immigrants from across the terrain of a collapsed Soviet empire. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize, received a National Book Foundation’s ‘5 under 35’ award, and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Zoetrope, and other magazines. In 2017 Sana was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. To research THE PATRIOTS, Sana traveled to oil fields in Texas and KGB record warehouses in Moscow. After four years in Kenya, she recently moved back to New York with her family and currently lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, radio journalist Gregory Warner, and their two children. Presented in partnership with the Miami Beach JCC Literary Series.

RENA KRAUT

JOY LADIN

BEREL LANG

DENNIS LEHANE

DAVID LIDA
David Lida is the author of four books, including the very well-received travel narrative “First Stop in the New World” (Riverhead, 2009). His first novel, “One Life” was published in Mexico in Spanish in 2016. He has been a journalist for more than twenty years, principally in the U.S. and Mexico, but also for magazines in England, Canada and Peru. He is based in Mexico City. When he is not writing, he works as an investigator for lawyers in the U.S. who defend Latin Americans that are facing the death penalty. Presented in partnership with MBJCC Literary Series 2018.

ADA LIMÓN
Ada Limón is the author of four books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her other books include Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Sharks in the Rivers. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program, and the 24Pearl Street online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writer splitting her time between Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California. Presented in partnership with Supporting Women Writers in Miami (SWWIM).

JESSIE LOUISE MARK

GESA MACKENTHUN

MEGHAN MACLEMORE

MICHELE MARTINEZ, PhD
Michele Martinez was born in London, England, and raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley. She attended Stanford University for her Bachelor’s degree and then changed coasts for a doctorate at Yale. She teaches literature and writing courses at Boston University and Harvard. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century British poetry, painting, and photography and the literary origins of modern art reception and curatorial practices. Michele has published her work in a variety of academic journals and book collections, including Victorian Review, Victorian Poetry, and Modern Language Studies. Her book Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh: A Reading Guide sheds light on the verse-novel’s origins in classical epic and the English novel and illuminates the text’s portrayal of women’s work and sexuality, engagement with visual art, and passionate response to mid-nineteenth-century political and social change. Michele’s current work-in-progress focuses on sentimentality and the resistant subject in the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron, Sally Mann, and other photographers whose models were children, elders, or domestic workers from the artist’s own household.

M.B. MCLATCHEY

BEN MEZRICH
New York Times Bestselling Author, Ben Mezrich cracked the Hollywood Reporter’s annual hot list: Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. Mezrich was chosen among a group of 11 new authors to join this power list of 25 authors that are touted to be “the industry’s most sought-after word nerds.” The Hollywood Reporter power list is derived from book sales, number of adaptations, projects in development, additional credits and cultural influence. Mezrich clocks in at #17 among other stats like his multiple movie deals in production such as his newest book Woolly, about the resurrection of the woolly mammoth from frozen DNA, Seven Wonders, Once Upon a Time in Russia, and The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway.

BRENDA MILLER
Brenda Miller teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing and the MA program in English Studies at Western Washington University. She is the author of An Earlier Life (Ovenbird Books, 2016), Who You Will Become (Shebooks Press, 2015), Listening Against the Stone: Selected Essays (Skinner House Books 2011), Blessing of the Animals (Eastern Washington University Press 2009), and Season of the Body (Sarabande Books 2002). She co-authored, with poet Holly J. Hughes, The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World (Skinner House Books, 2012). She is also the co-author of Tell it Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, 2nd Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2012). Her work has received six Pushcart Prizes, and all six prize-winning essays are included in Listening Against the Stone. Her essays have been published in many journals, including Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, Utne Reader, The Georgia Review, and The Missouri Review. Brenda lives in Bellingham, WA, with her dog Abbe and many foster dogs who find temporary shelter with her through Happy Tails Happy Homes. Presented with the FIU Writers on the Bay Reading Series.

GILBERT MIRAMBEAU, JR.

MARY MORRIS

JULIE MORRISY

TERENCE NANCE

NEFERTITI NGUVU
Nefertite is a graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, where she obtained a B.F.A in Film. As writer/director/producer, Nefertite made her feature film debut with “In The Morning,” a film about love and its inevitable change/decline charting the emotional anatomy of several relationships over the course of one day. “In The Morning” delves into the emotional landscape of contemporary black life in a way rarely seen in modern cinema. The film debuted at the Urban World Film Festival in New York City and won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film. After a string of successful film festival screenings across the country and in Paris, Rome and Johannesburg, the film also won the award for Best International Film at the Terra Di Siena Film Festival in Italy, Best Narrative Feature at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, and Best Feature Film and Best Overall at the Bronzelens Film Festival in Atlanta. “In The Morning” is now available worldwide via Video on Demand. Presented in partnership with the Black Lounge Film Series 2018.

ALI NOORANI

CHINELO OKPARANTA
Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chinelo Okparanta received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. A Colgate University Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Fiction, as well as a recipient of the University of Iowa's Provost's Postgraduate Fellowship in Fiction, Okparanta, was nominated for a US Artists Fellowship in 2012. She is a winner of a 2014 Lambda Literary Award, a 2016 Lambda Literary Award, the 2016 Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Award in Fiction, the 2016 Inaugural Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle, and a 2014 O. Henry Prize. Presented as part of the UM IBIS Reading Series.

NINA GALE OLSON

JAMIE ORBERTS

ILEANA PEREZ VELAZQUEZ
Cuban-born composer Ileana Perez Velazquez lives in upstate NY and is a Professor of Music Composition at Williams College, MA. The New York Times has praised the “imaginative strength and musical consistency” and the “otherworldly quality” of her compositions. Her music has been featured regularly in numerous international festivals and concerts around the world. She was a recipient of a 2015 commission from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard. She has written music premiered by prestigious contemporary music ensembles from NYC such as Continuum, ICE, Flux, and Momenta quartets, Miranda Cuckson and NUNC, League of Composers NYC, and Dal Niente from Chicago among many others. Albany Records, Innova, and Urlicht Audiovisual have released recordings of her music. Presented in partnership with FIU NODUS 2018.

MARTIN PERNA

SARAH B. POMEROY
Dr. Sarah B. Pomeroy is an American ancient historian, author, translator, and former Distinguished Professor of Classics and History at C.U.N.Y. She is best known for her pioneering work on the history of women in classical antiquity. Pomeroy graduated from Barnard College and received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is the author of many books including Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity, Women in Hellenistic Egypt, Spartan Women, The Murder of Regilla: A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity, and Pythagorean Women. She has received many awards and honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, is an Honorary Fellow of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and has been elected to the American Philosophical Society.

ELIZABETH POWELL
Elizabeth A. I. Powell is the author of “The Republic of Self” a New Issue First Book Prize winner, selected by C.K. Williams. Her second book “Willy Loman’s Reckless Daughter: Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances” won the Robert Dana Prize in poetry, chosen by Maureen Seaton, and will be published by Anhinga Press in 2016. In 2013, she won a Pushcart Prize. Powell has also received a Vermont Council on the Arts grants and a Yaddo fellowship. Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Barrow Street, Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, Harvard Review, Handsome, Hobart, Indiana Review, Missouri Review, Mississippi Review, Slope, Sugarhouse Review, Ploughshares, Post Road, and elsewhere. She is Editor of Green Mountains Review, and Associate Professor of Writing and Literature at Johnson State College. She also serves on the faculty of the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing and Publishing. Born in New York City, she has lived in Vermont since 1989 with her four children.

ROGER REEVES

BEN RHODES

TOBY RIVKIN

TOBY RIVKIN

KNOX ROBINSON

JUDITH RODRÍGUEZ

CHANTELLE ROSE

SHEENA ROSE

MICHAEL ROSSI

MICHAEL ROSSI

CLAUDIO RYNKA

JACOB SAENZ

RACHELLE SALNAVE
In a 10-year span, filmmaker Rachelle Salnave’s work has garnered many accolades, including “Best Documentary” at the 2010 African World Documentary Film Festival in St. Louis, Missouri, “Beacon of Hope and Achievement” Award from the General Consulate of the Republic of Haiti in Miami, and the Sundance Institute 2015 Screenwriters Intensive Fellow. She has recently been nominated for a 2016 EMMY for her feature documentary, “La Belle Vie: The Good Life,” which examines her Haitian identity. Salnave is a Knight Foundation recipient and named as the 2017 “Knight Champion” her leadership in the film community in Miami. February 2018 she begins the launch of her new monthly film series entitled the Black Lounge Film Series in which she will be bringing films to Historic Overtown that explore the Black experience. Presented in partnership with the Black Lounge Film Series 2018.

SONIA SANCHEZ

NICOLE SEALEY

HEATHER SELLERS
Heather Sellers (PhD, Florida State University) is professor of English at Hope College in Michigan, where she teaches fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction and a Barnes & Noble New Discovery Writers Award, she has published widely in a variety of genres. Her books include Georgia Under Water, a collection of linked stories; Drinking Girls and Their Dresses: Poems; Page After Page, a memoir of the writing life; and Spike and Cubby s Ice Cream Island Adventure, a children s book.

JOSE SEREBRIER

NTOZAKE SHANGE

BA SHAPIRO

DANI SHAPIRO
Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and has been broadcast on “This American Life”. Dani was recently Oprah Winfrey’s guest on”Super Soul Sunday.” She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, The New School and Wesleyan University; she is co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. A contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler, Dani lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Her most recent book, Hourglass, was just published by Knopf.

KEVIN SHARPLEY

GRETTEL SINGER

JOEL SMIRNOFF

AURIN SQUIRE

NATALIA SYLVESTER

ANDREW TYSON

ANTOINE WAGNER

ANTOINE WAGNER

LINDA WATSON

ED WINSTEAD

OCTAVIA YEARWOOD

CHING YUN-HU

ALAN ZWEIBEL
An original “Saturday Night Live” writer whom the New York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture.” Alan has won multiple Emmys and awards from the Writers Guild of America and The TV Critics Association for his work in television which includes “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (which he co-created & produced), Curb Your Enthusiasm” and "The Late Show with David Letterman.” A frequent guest on late night talk shows, Alan can currently be seen on stage at New York’s Triad Theater as an ensemble performer in Celebrity Autobiography! Alan’s theatrical works include his collaboration with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award winning “700 Sundays,” Martin Short’s Broadway hit “Fame Becomes Me,” the off-Broadway plays “Happy,” “Comic Dialogue,” “Between Cars,” “Pine Cone Moment” and “Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner-A Sort of Romantic Comedy” which he adapted from his bestselling book. Presented as part of MBJCC Literary Series 2018 Series.