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James Cagney, a poet from Oakland, CA, has appeared in Alta, and Best American Poetry 2022. His second book, MARTIAN The Saint Of Loneliness, is the winner of the James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets and is now available from Nomadic Press.

Judy Juanita’s books include: Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland, American Book Award 2021; the semi-autobiographical novel, Virgin Soul, about a student in the Black Panther Party [Viking, 2013]; DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016]; the short story collection, The High Price of Freeways, [Livingston Press, 2022, winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama. She teaches writing at University of California, Berkeley.

Joshua Merchant is a native of East Oakland exploring what it means to be human. A lot of what they explore is in the realm of love and what it means while processing trauma, loss, and heartbreak. They feel as though as a people, especially those of us more marginalized than others, it has become too common to deny access to our true source of power as a means of feeling powerful. However, they’ve come to recognize with harsh lessons and divine grace that without showing up for ourselves and each other, everything else is null and void. You can find their work in Anvil Tongue, Spiritus Mundi Review, Rigorous Mag, and elsewhere. They’ve had the honor to receive the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for poetry.

Nazelah Jamison is a Bay Area-based performance poet, author, actor, vocalist and emcee. Her first book of poetry, Evolutionary Heart, was released on Nomadic Press in 2016. Her work can be found in Culture Counts Magazine, The Racket Journal : Issue Fifteen and others. Nazelah enjoys writing horror screenplays and saving the day. She hosts the Virtual Open Mic every other Friday on Zoom and gives the best hugs in the Bay Area.

Jackie Zaneri lives in Oakland, where she practices law as a tenant attorney. She grew up in New York.

Marianne Lonsdale writes personal essays, fiction, and poetry. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, Pulse and has aired on public radio.

Jan Steckel is a bisexual, disabled poet and writer. Her book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. She lives in the Allendale neighborhood of Oakland, California.

Tanya Castro is a writer from Oakland, California. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California. Tanya’s work is a Best of Microfiction 2022 winner as well as nominated for Best of the Net 2021. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Acentos Review, Anser Journal, FEED Lit Mag, Lost Balloon and Mason Jar Press.

Bay Area poet, artist, and performer Mo Corleone is a lifetime believer in direct talk and direct action. Her Oakland-centric chapbook of fiery place-based poems, Around the Lake, captured the raw mixture of bedlam and beauty unique to The Town.

Drawing on decades of gray area living while deftly passing for whatever the situation deemed necessary (white, straight, trustworthy...) Mo is actively learning to embrace her true identity as “Other.”

Edward Gunawan is the author of two chapbooks: The Way Back (winner of Start a Riot! Prize, Foglifter Press, 2022) and Press Play (Sweet Lit, 2020). Other publications include TriQuarterly, Aquifer: Florida Review Online, and Intimate Strangers anthology (Signal 8 Press). A queer Indonesian-born Chinese immigrant, he now resides on Ohlone land in Oakland, California. Visit addword.com for more info.

Giovanna Lomanto is a current MFA candidate at NYU's low-residency program, her work has been featured on KALW, the Worth-Ryder Art Gallery, the SFMOMA archive, and various literary magazines. She is the author of two poetry collections as well as a poetry box/art edition . She is also a poetry reader at The Adroit Journal, and she simultaneously serves as the host/curator of The Living Room Series & Salon at Syzygy in San Francisco.

Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of Bone Moon Palace (Nomadic Press 2021) and We Shoot Typewriters (Nomadic Press 2015) and the forthcoming The Sincere (Libran Apocalypse Books) as well as a number of other chaps, anthologies and collections, as well as an 18-year-old Discord fanatic. He teaches, edits, and is in search of the mythical "affordable all purpose" art space in the East Bay.

Youssef Alaoui-Fdili is an Arab-Latino, born in California. His mother is Colombiana. His father was Moroccan. The Alaoui-Fdilis are originally from Fez. His brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins are today mostly in Casablanca and Rabat. His family and heritage are an endless source of inspiration for his varied, dark, spiritual and carnal writings. He earned an MFA in Poetics from New College of California, San Francisco. More at linktr.ee/youssefalaoui.

Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. He has two full-length poetry collections forthcoming from Kelsay Books and Falkenberg Press. Keith is also the president of the Berkeley Branch of the California Writers Club. Learn more at keithmgaboury.com.

Susan Calvillo is a Chinese/Mexican-American and the author of Excerpts From My Grocery List (Beard of Bees). Her writing appears in Zyzzyva, New American Writing, West Wind Review, Nightmare, and other charming magazines. Keep reading at susancalvillo.com or simply watch her eat cake and plant cacti on Instagram @susan_calvillo and TikTok @thatbeardlessbard

Aki Cabrera is a poet and recovering software engineer. After moving from Montana to attend UC Berkeley in 2003, they've lived in the East Bay ever since. You might catch them writing at a kava bar, thinking way too long about one word; or at a meetup playing a board game, thinking way too long about one turn.

Susana Praver-Pérez is the author of Hurricanes, Love Affairs, and Other Disasters (Nomadic Press 2021) which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in 2022. Her other honors include: the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award (2021), and a Pushcart nomination (2020). Susana is an alumna of the Macondo and Las Dos Brujas Writers Workshops and belongs to many writing communities from San Francisco to San Juan. For more, please visit susanapraverperez.com.

Norma Smith was born in Detroit and grew up in Fresno, California. She has lived in the East Bay of San Francisco for more than fifty years. She has worked as a journalist, editor, community scholar/educator, and social researcher. Smith's writing has been published in literary, scholarly, and political journals. Nomadic Press published her book of poems, HOME REMEDY (2017).

Chris Stroffolino has taught English at Laney College since 2008. He’s published essays on such Bay Area writers as Tureeda Mikell, Maw Shein Win, Judy Juanita, Delia Tramontina, and Alli Warren, in Konch and Entopy, in addition to publishing several books of his own poetry. He played piano at the Jahva House, and Coffee With a Beat, before gentrification evicted them. More recently, you could hear him practice trumpet at Lake Merritt.

J.R Rice is a Black man, writer, teacher, and spoken word artist, born and raised in Oakland, California. He has a B.A in Creative Writing and an English Education teaching credential from California State University of Long Beach. While studying abroad in Greece, he was mentored by the author, George Crane. His novella, Broken Pencils earned second place for Best African-American Fiction and Best Novella in the 2023 Speak Up Radio International Firebird Book Award Contest, an Honorable Mention in the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Award for Best Wild Card entry, and was a top finalist for Hidden River Arts’ 2023 Blue Mountain Award. His short story, “Depends (Good Night)” made the shortlist for the 2023 Letter Review Prize for Short Stories. His travel essays, “No Pasa Nada” earned Third place in the 16th Annual Solas Award for Best Men's Travel Story. In addition to his writing accolades, he earned the Rookie of the Year award at the 2005 National Collegiate Poetry Slam in Philadelphia. He was a Semi-Finalist in the 2023 Berkeley Poetry Slam Finals. J.R Rice resides and teaches in the Bay Area. For more visit beacons.ai/imjrice or his IG at @imjrice.

Karla Tiffany is a Black poet and fiction writer from Oakland, CA. She holds a BA in Writing and Literature from California College of the Arts. She is a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for Poetry (2021). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the San Francisco Public Library’s Poem of the Day series, Second Stutter, Gulf Coast Journal, Augur Magazine, 1619 Speaks: An Anthology of African American Poetry (Sims Library of Poetry), When We Exhale (Black Freighter Press), midnight & indigo, and SAND Literature and Art.

Natasha was born in Melbourne, Australia, and has an MFA from SFSU. She has had poetry published in many journals in the USA and internationally. She has had several collections of poetry and chapbooks published, most recently Broken: A Life of Aileen Wuornos in 33 poems from Be About It Press. She works as a housing navigator for St James Infirmary, a clinic for sex workers, in SF.

Lauren Parker is a writer, zinemaker, and visual artist in Oakland, California. She’s a graduate of Hiram College’s Creative Writing program and has written for the Toast, Strange Horizons, The Racket, Xtra Magazine, Catapult, and Autostraddle. She’s the winner of the Vachel Lindsay poetry prize, is the author of the poetry collection We Are Now the Thing in the Woods with Bottlecap Press, and the forthcoming 40 Spells to Set Intentions and Manifest Everyday Wins with Simon Element.

Rohan DaCosta is a multi-disciplinary artist from Chicago, based in Oakland. His book of photography, poetry, and song, The Edge of Fruitvale, was published by Nomadic Press in 2018, and has been nominated for a California Book Award and a Pushcart Prize. His portrait photography has been featured at The Flight Deck Gallery, Root Division Gallery, and Joyce Gordon Gallery, and Mercury Twenty Gallery. In 2018, he was awarded the Individual Artist Funding Grant by the City of Oakland for his arts exhibition on intersectional resistance, Trap : Trauma : Transformation (April 9 – May 18). Rohan recently has served as a board member on the Alameda County Arts Commission and as Exhibition Coordinator / Curator for the East Bay Photo Collective.

Linda Norton is the author of Wite Out: Love and Work (2020), a memoir with poems, and its prequel, The Public Gardens: Poems and History (2011), a finalist for an LA Times Book Prize. Her collages have appeared on the covers of her own books and books by Claudia Rankine, Julie Carr, and other writers. She's been a columnist-in-residence at SFMOMA’s Open Space & received a CWF grant in 2014 for work in the Fruitvale.

David S. Maduli is a Filipinx father, husband, poet and educator. His work, often inflected by many years as a DJ and public school teacher, has received the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Born in San Francisco, he is a longtime resident of East Oakland, Lisjan Ohlone land, where he completed his MFA at Mills College with a fellowship in Community Poetics. His poems appear in Sonora Review, Cream City Review, Kweli Journal, The /tƐmz/ Review, among others. In addition to his work in public schools and the community, he is an instructor in the MFA in Writing program at Lindenwood University.

Dean Engle is a teacher and writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended Humboldt State and earned his M.F.A. from San Francisco State, where he taught Creative Writing 101. His work has been published in Great Lakes Review, Santa Ana River Review, New Plains Review, Brushfire Review, the Ana, ideaFest, Toyon, and Transfer Magazine. In his spare time, he enjoys camping, making soup, and overwatering his beloved cactus.

Stefani is a femme trash mami and poet against capitalism. A formerly homeless Irish-Latina dyke, she lives near the MacArthur BART with her girlfriend and their beloved baby. She is co-founder of The Sportula: Microgrants For Classics Students, and #37MLK, an unhoused land/tiny home project. She works as a Latin teacher and as the mail clerk for the West Oakland Homeless Action Center. She believes that art is a weapon and anger is a gift.

JAKE MIKE BOY is a writer from Oakland, CA. Went to Glenview, Bret Harte, and graduated from Tech in 2009. Left afterward but always came back. Left a bit more indefinitely to move to Malmö, Sweden, in 2016. Malmö is lightweight the Oakland of Scandinavia. Lightweight. He wrote a novel about Oakland that’s never been published but has published one story, about Oakland, in WORD-O-MAT, a zine so small it literally fits in a vending machine.

I am an Irish-Mexican poet from Oakland, California, currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at San Francisco State. I earned my undergrad degree at California College of the Arts studying under poets such as Ishmael Reed, Joseph Lease, and Gloria Frym. I have attended writer's residencies at Arquetopia in Oaxaca, Mexico, CAMP FR in Toulouse, France, and The California Callegory in East Oakland. I am currently developing a style called California Gothic which is a subset of American Gothic. My style aims to employ elevated slang, hyper-local ingredients, and organic surrealism. I have been published in Humble Pie, Placeholder, California's Best Emerging Poets, Konch, San Diego Poetry Annual, and The Ana.

Philippine-born and LA-raised, Elsa Valmidiano is an Ilocana-American essayist and poet who is a long-time resident of Oakland for nearly two decades. Her debut essay collection from New Rivers Press, We Are No Longer Babaylan, was an Editors’ Choice selection from their Many Voices Project competition in Prose. Her second essay collection, The Beginning of Leaving, is from Querencia Press in Summer 2023. Elsa’s work is widely published in journals and recently appears in Canthius, Hairstreak Butterfly Review, MUTHA, Sunflower Station, NiftyLit, and Pearl Press. Her work is also widely anthologized. Please visit her website slicingtomatoes.com for more information.

Maymunah Rasheed, an Oakland, CA native graduated as a Skyline High School Titan and currently attends Berkeley City College for creative writing. She is an aspiring novelist on the brink of finishing her first book and working on publishing her first collection of poems entitled, Welcome to Oakland, Bitch. She can be found reading or writing anywhere and everywhere, selling her handcrafted jewelry, painting, reading tarot, singing karaoke, plucking up the courage to read at open mics, and tending to her plant babies. Simply put, she is who she is because...well, Oakland.

Terry Tierney is the author of a poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, and the novels Lucky Ride and The Bridge on Beer River (July 2023) published by Unsolicited Press. His poems have recently appeared in Remington Review, Reed Magazine, Rust and Moth, Typishly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Lake, and other publications. His website is terrytierney.com.

Landon Smith (he/him) is a father, a professor, a poet, half Mende and half Balanta & Fulani. Despite his institutional degrees, he truly became a poet through the East Side Arts Alliance in Oakland. Landon thanks his sister Alia for buying him his first journal, Brit Hill for pushing him to read poetry in public, and Black Freighter Press for publishing his first book, No Bedtime Stories of Soil. Abolish all prisons and police.

Amy K. Bell is a mixed Chinese American writer, early childhood educator, and mother of two. Her work has been published in Hyphen, Paperbark, The Margins, and The Forge, among others. Her poetry chapbook, The Book of Sibyl, was published in 2013 (Gorilla Press). She is a co-founder of Drop Leaf Press and lives in Oakland, CA.

Marabet (MAH-rah-bet) Morales Sikahall is a Guatemalan-American educator and writer from East Oakland, California. She is an alumna of Oakland School for the Arts, Berkeley City College, and San Francisco State University. Currently, she is the editor and founder of online literary journal, Diaspora Baby Blues. Her writing can be found in Oakland Voices, Xinachtli Journal—Journal X, and The Oaklandside or you can follow her on social media @maramorasika to read more.

I am the author of four books of poetry, most recently Desire Zoo (Tia Chucha Press), and In the Time of Great Fires (Catamaran Press). In addition to poetry, I write plays and musicals and personal essays. I was a California Poet-in-the-schools for twenty years. I currently teach memoir and poetry through The Writing Salon in Berkeley.

TOMAS MONIZ is a latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His new novel, All Friends Are Necessary, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.

Njeri Kamau-Devers is a writer and teacher from Oakland. Her pen goes wherever her feet go, moving from Bigmama's kitchen, to Chinatown, to Nairobi and the Freedom Farmers' Market, just to name a few. She loves to catch the words of strangers with her pen and journal in her bed at night. She recently joined the Friends and Stewards of the African-American Museum and Library at Oakland. You should too! She is the founder of Little Sheep Chinese Learning Center, an Afrocentric learning center dedicated to the teaching of Mandarin and African Diasporic language and culture to children ages 5 to 10.

Tureeda Mikell, Oakland native , story medicine woman, poet, author, educator, published 73 at-risk student anthologies from 5 Bay Area counties. Hailed, activist for holism hellbent on asserting life, her works are published and have traveled from Africa, France, UK, Australia, Japan, to China. Her book, Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine was nominated for the California Book Award. Tureeda co-produced and curated EastSide Arts Alliance's, Patrice Lumumba Anthology, both published by Nomadic Press.

Nia McAllister is an award-winning poet, writer, and environmental justice advocate working at the intersection of art, activism, and public engagement. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Nia works as the Senior Public Programs Manager at The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco where she creates spaces for creative expression and literary dialogue. Nia's writing and poetry have been featured on Poets of Color Podcast, Bay Poets | KALW Public Media, and published in Doek! Literary Magazine, Radicle magazine, Meridians journal, and Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion (Nomadic Press, 2022). She is a recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards. Learn more about Nia's work at niamcallister.com

Father, Son, Student, Teacher, Activist and Native of Oakland, CA. Writer of “Bleeding Between the Bars” featured in Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation & Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion. Instructor for Beats Flows & Poetry Facilitator for Patrice Lumumba Writing Group at Eastside Arts Alliance. Creating a voice that speaks from a place many choose to ignore or have never personally experienced and paying homage.

Dr. Adrienne Danyelle Oliver is a poet-educator, hip-hop scholar from Little Rock, Arkansas, currently living in the SF Bay Area. She enjoys reflecting on and writing about intergenerational healing. Her published chapbooks, collective madness (Finishing Line Press) and the body has memories (Black Lawrence Press), include these reflections. Part poetry, part memoir, part dream, these chapbooks are the beginning of a liberation she hopes to witness among all bodies harboring historical trauma. Some of Adrienne’s favorite authors include Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. When she is not writing, Adrienne leads well-being writing circles for Black scholars and helps people of the global majority to heal from racial and socioeconomic trauma so they can share their stories with the world. She also curates Black Gold Storytellers, an award-winning intergenerational storytelling circle featuring elders who have migrated from the South. She has been living, working and writing poetry in Oakland since 2010.

Peggy Morrison grew up in Long Beach and Sacramento, went to college in Berkeley, Davis, and Monterey, and raised her daughter in Watsonville while working as a bilingual teacher. She moved to Oakland in 2008. She has read her poetry in English and Spanish in the US, Mexico, and Cuba, and published in journals and anthologies including Colossus: Home and Colossus: Body, Cloud Woman Quarterly, Naked Bulb Anthology, A Day Without Art, Beaboutit, Plants and Poetry and Poecology. Her first book of poetry, Mom Says (2020), celebrates voice as a living embodiment of culture and history.

norm mattox is a retired educator whose poetry tells a story of love and resilience in our times of challenge, struggle, and transformation. norm's first chapbook, Get Home Safe, Poems for Crossing the Community Grid, was published in 2016. Nomadic Press published his second chapbook, Black Calculus, released February 2021, and launched an audiobook by the same title, Black Calculus.

Hilary Vo (she/her) is a rollerskating high school English teacher, avid book reader. She moved to the Bay Area to complete her Master’s of Education at the University of Pacific. She graduated with a Bachelor’s of Art in English Writing and Classical Studies from a small liberal arts college in Washington. She loves her two roommates, two cats, her Oakland skate community and so much more.

Oakland native Nicia De'Lovely is an acclaimed poet, ARTivist against child molestation, DV, CSEC and human sex trafficking, and a community steward. She is a 2019 Best of Fringe recipient, and the 2022 Glide Memorial Poet in Residence. Her poetry parlor, The Lovely Nest, is a creative healing space for survivors, and a resource station for the unhoused.

Melissa Mack is a poet, author of The Next Crystal Text (Timeless, Infinite Light/Nightboat), the chapbook Includes All Strangers (Hooke Press), and other ephemeral works. With other activists, artists, and educators, she organized the Oakland Summer School, a collaborative, non-institutional space of gathering and study. She lived in Oakland for 19 years, 17 of them in the same studio apartment in Grand Lake. She said goodbye to Oakland in 2021 to pursue a PhD in Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Odelia Younge is an educator and writer born in the Caribbean, raised in the Midwest, and currently based in Oakland, California. In her life and work she centers discussions on Blackness, resistance, and joy. Odelia’s passion for storytelling and cultivating spaces of belonging was birthed in her from the rich history of oral tradition, storytelling, and space-making as immigrants and migrants in her family.

Odelia is the co-creator of ‘this is my body,’ a storytelling experience for women of color and co-hosts the podcast Tea & Transitions. Odelia is the co-author and editor of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University and editor of this is my body: An Anthology of Women of Color Reclaiming Narratives of Self and Body. Odelia’s current projects focus on the dynamic between memory and trauma. She is the co-founder of Novalia Collective, an organization focused on storytelling and building communities of belonging. You can read more of her writing at odeliayounge.com .

Castro has his roots deeply grounded and connected to his family's native state of Nayarit, Mexico, and the city that raised his mother and where he was born, the city of Oakland. Castro has worked in education in the public, independent, and non-profit sector as an educator, academic coach, and leader for the past 10 years. He loves teaching humanities at the high school level and is also passionate about coaching track and field and cross country athletes. He believes in living a balanced life and last summer had a fire ignited by a very intimate experience in Santa Fe whilst on a writing retreat to work on his craft as a writer. It was there that his Spanish poem, "El Flamingo Mariachi Loco de Oakland" was born. As an educator, leader, activist, writer, coach, cat papi, and proud Columbia graduate, he acknowledges what a privilege it was to have a strong mother that never gave up on him, a supportive family, and a solid circle of friends and positive relationships that became extended family. He never forgot where he came from and he will never forget the way that Oakland continues to shape him.

Cin is a Afro-Mexicana, queer, 22 yr old poet / spoken word artist with a musical essence. A lover of art in all of its forms. She uses her poetry to not only heal herself and process trauma, but to move through and heal intergenerational trauma.

“Being able to put pen to pad has been like breath to lung” – Cin

Cassandra Dallett lives in Oakland, CA. Cassandra has published multiple chapbooks and full-length books of poetry, (two of which, On Sunday, A Finch and Collapse both on Nomadic Press, were nominated for CA Book awards.) She has been nominated for six Pushcart Prizes and was recently in the running for Oakland's first Poet Laureate. Cassandra is a Literary Death Match winner, named a writer to watch in 7X7 Magazine, hosts the monthly writing workshop ON TWO SIX, is co-host of the quarterly-themed reading series MoonDrop Productions, and host of The Badass Bookworm Podcast. Her most recent book of poetry, A Pretty Little Wilderness came out on Be About It Press June of 2020. Look for links at cassandradallett.com

MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, multi-disciplinary artist, and curator. Chavez co-directs Berkeley Poetry Festival and is co-founder of Lyrics & Dirges.

Chavez's writing explores identity, social injustice, environmental degradation, horror cinema, magic and ritual, and has been recognized with a Pen Oakland Josephine Miles award, San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award, and is a 2023 was named a YBCA 100 fellow. Chavez’s literary offerings include Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, the lyric essay chapbook A Brief History of the Selfie, and Virgin Eyes. Recent work can be found among the trees in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park through the Voices of the Trees Project.

J. K. Fowler founded Nomadic Press, a national award-winning community-focused non-profit publisher that was in operation from 2011–2013 and headquartered in Oakland, California. He is Co-Founder of Bundo Cafebrería, a café/pizzeria/librería/community event space in the heart of Xalapa, the capitol of the Mexican state of Veracruz, featuring artwork, writing, and performance from artists from all over Mexico and the world. He hosts the Public Planter Publishing Podcast, founded Nomadic Foundation, and founded a retreat center for creatives called Huerto de Osos Perezosos in Xalapa, Mexico. For more, visit jkfowler.com.

Ayodele ‘WordSlanger’ Nzinga, MFA, Ph.D., is a multi-hyphenated artist. Working at the intersections of cultural production, community transformation, and change. Her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals, including Black Bird Press & Review, Black Rootedness, Painting the Streets, The Patrice Lumumba Anthology, 14 Hills, African American Journal of Poetry, and Magnolia Journal. She is the author of Performing Literacy: A Narrative Inquiry into Performance Pedagogy; The Horse Eaters; SorrowLand Oracle; and Incandescent. Nzinga hosts Winter in America the SpeakEasy. Ayodele Nzinga is a member of the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame, founder of Oakland’s oldest Black theater company, the Lower Bottom Playaz, Executive Director of BAMBD CDC, producer of BAMBDFEST, a YBCA 10 fellow, and the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland, CA.

Daniel B. Summerhill is a poet and essayist who has earned fellowships from Baldwin for the Arts and The Watering Hole. He is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Monterey County and has published two collections of poems, Divine, Divine, Divine ('21) and Mausoleum of Flowers ('22). His poems and essays appear in The Academy of American Poets, The Progressive, Columbia Journal, Obsidian, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. An Oakland native, Daniel lives in the Bay Area and is Assistant Professor of Poetry at Santa Clara University.

Bisexual artist/activist Juba Kalamka is most recognized for his work with performance troupes Sins Invalid and Mangos With Chili and as co-founder and producer of the queer hip hop group Deep Dickollective (D/DC). His writing appears in numerous journals and anthologies including The Yale Anthology of Rap (2010), Queer and Trans Artists of Color: The Stories of Some of Our Lives (2014), Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men (Bisexual Resource Center, 2015), and Hustling Verse: An anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press 2019). His first full-length poetry anthology, Son of Byford (Nomadic Press) and his debut album with queer nü metal/rap-rock collective COMMANDO (Kill Rock Stars) were released in 2022. He has lived in Oakland since January 1, 1999. Photo credit: Othear Kinney

Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American poet, playwright, and performer whose mission is to create poetic and theatrical work about race, gender, and the body to provoke dialogue and social change. Suzara has graced stages nationally with her dynamic spoken word and has collaborated with dance theater companies and musical groups, including Deep Waters Dance Theater, Ramon Alayo Dance Theater, Kronos Quartet, as well as produced her own multidisciplinary projects. Her poetry book, SOUVENIR (WordTech Editions 2014) was a Willa Award Finalist and her poems appear in numerous collections. Her performance and plays have been supported by the Kenneth Rainin New Works Fund, YBCAway Award, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. She is the founder of a writing and consulting business, Wild Tongues, and has taught poetry, spoken word, creative writing, ethnic studies, literature and composition for the past twenty years, to youth and adults. She's currently teaching at San Francisco State University. For more, visit aimeesuzara.net.

Michal ‘MJ’ Jones is a poet & parent based in the Bay Area, and the Editor-In-Chief of Foglifter Press. They have a debut full-length poetry collection, HOOD VACATIONS from Black Lawrence Press, and a chapbook, SOFT ARMOR, from Nomadic Press.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. He is the author of Someone’s Dead Already, Heaven Is All Goodbyes, Waiting Behind Tornados for Food, and Blood on the Fog. In 2020, he co-founded Black Freighter Press to publish revolutionary works. He is San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate.

AVOTCJA POET/PLAYWRIGHT/MULTI-PERCUSSIONIST/PHOTOGRAPHER/TEACHER Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico, and Europe. She’s an award winning Poet and multi-instrumentalist. She’s a popular Bay Area DJ and Radio Personality & leader of the group “Avotcja & Modúpue” (The Bay Area Blues Society’s Jazz Group Of The Year in 2005 & 2010), facilitates La Palabra Musical (The Music of The Word) the longest running Multi-lingual Poetry Series in Oakland, CA. Avotcja teaches Creative Writing & Drama and is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Org.), PEN Oakland, alumni of California Poets In The Schools & is an ASCAP recording artist. Her latest Book is With Every Step I Take 2 (Taurean Horn) . For more, visit www.Avotcja.org.

My name is Epitome and I am a spoken word artist and business owner of Epitome Clothing Company. I currently have an open mic every 2nd and 4th Tuesday at the Berkeley Black Repertory Theater. I am also the Poetic Ambassador for the SF Bayview where i feature a spoken word artist each month as well.

Kevin Madrigal Galindo is a first generation hijo de su chingada madre from South San Francisco by way of Zapopan, Jalisco. You can find Kevin’s work in The Boiler, Bozalta, KQED, and also inscribed on bridge overpasses and tree stumps around the SF Bay Area. His first chapbook, Hell/a Mexican is out now. He is currently reimagining the world with abuelita wisdom, and trying to channel rage into change.

Vernon (Trey) Keeve III is an inquiry-based educator who taught in a school for expelled youth in Oakland, CA, for seven years. They are currently pursuing a doctorate in the Teaching of English at Teachers College, Columbia University. Their research is anchored in interventions and alternatives for suspension and expulsion, strategies that combat the adultification of expelled/excluded youth, and practices that reinvigorate disengaged learners. Their book Southern Migrant Mixtape was the recipient of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2019. They look forward to moving back to Oakland in the near future in order to finish conducting their research in Oakland schools.