Swimming in the Dark, International bestselling novel takes to the stage

Dr. MaryLouise Patterson is a retired general pediatrician living in NYC. She is also a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 4.

Her parents, Louise and William Patterson, were Leftist civil rights activists their entire lives. They represented the best in the Black Radical tradition. They instilled in her a profound love and pride of Black people and to the need to uphold their culture, history and noble struggle for freedom and unbridled inclusion.

She received her medical degree from Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow, USSR and a Masters, Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

She is the co-author of “Letters from Langston: From the Red Scare to the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond”. UC Press 2016.

She loves jazz, plays, art exhibits, dancing – despite not getting enough of it anymore, socializing and cooking for friends and family, discussing politics, reading, traveling plus just living.

She is committed to and active in the push for universal health care-Medicare for All, to ending institutionalized racism in medicine, to increasing the number of Black, Latinx, Native American Indian and women health providers and to Peace with Justice everywhere.

Dr. Royel M. Johnson is one of the nation’s leading voices on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. A tenured professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, Johnson also serves as chair of the school’s PhD program. He is the Director of the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates in the USC Race and Equity Center, which is the nation’s leading tool for assessing campus racial climate. Johnson is the author and editor of five books and over 60 academic papers and chapters. His recent books include The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools (Harvard Education Press) and From Foster Care to College: Navigating Educational Challenges and Creating Possibilities (Teachers College Press). Additionally, Johnson serves as Co-Editor of Educational Researcher, the flagship journal for the field of education. The Los Angeles Times recently named Dr. Johnson a DEIA Visionary, recognizing his efforts to propel positive change across the country.

Dr. Sonia Mae Brown is currently an Associate Professor of Language and Letters and the Chair of the Division of Arts and Humanities at Philander Smith University. Dr. Brown received her doctoral degree in English from Howard University and she also possesses a Masters in English with a focus in Creative and Professional Writing from Long Island University. Her areas of research are gender and sexuality, black female sexuality, and sex as a discursive act or practice.

As a self-proclaimed “Eroticist” or “Literary Sexual Anthropologist, Dr. Brown is dedicated to enriching the current scholarship on The Erotic and exploring the potential for eroticism to be seen as a critical lens of textual inquiry. According to Dr. Brown, “reading is an erotic pursuit, and those who engage in the process of reading are engaging in an intimate activity.” Dr. Brown is passionate about bringing discussions of the erotic into the academy and into the classroom. She is currently working on a monograph about sadomasochism in James Baldwin’s literature.

Monica Lopez De Victoria (b. 1980, Gainesville, FL, USA) is a multi-disciplinary artist and performer in Artistic Synchronized Swimming. For the past 20 years Monica has woven these two art forms together. Her colorful geometric aquatic videos, performances, and textiles investigate emotional volume in space and movement in the 4 dimensions.

Monica’s art work has been featured in international exhibitions such as “Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3rd Millennium” curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and PERFORMA in NYC by Roselee Goldberg. Her work has been seen and written about in L’Officiel magazine, The Guardian, STEP Inside Design, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Vogue Italia, and on the cover of ARTnews magazine.

Monica’s artwork also is a part of permanent collections of the Van Abbe Museum in the Netherlands and the Perez Art Museum Miami as well as other public and private collections. Monica has participated in residencies in Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and the USA and has recently been supported by the Bauhaus Foundation for residency projects in Germany and South Korea.

artist photo by Thomas Meyer

William Kwamena-Poh is a native of Ghana, West Africa. He came to the United States in the early 1980’s and has resided in Alabama, Washington DC, Chicago, IL and has called Savannah, GA home since 1995. William is a self taught artist who paints with gouache, also known as opaque watercolor; the same medium used by the late, great African American artist, Jacob Lawrence and also experimented with by Dali, Picasso, and Klimt. According to Ralph Mayer’s Artist Handbook, “gouache paints are opaque and have (or should have) a total hiding power, and because they do not become progressively transparent with age as oil have a tendency to do…gouache has a brilliant light-reflecting quality of a different and distinct nature; it lies in the paint surface itself; its whiteness or brightness comes from the use of white pigments.”

This density and opacity of gouache allows William to capture and give the viewer a small window into his beautiful and wonder-filled homeland. “The sun’s strength is ever present, providing a colorful environment which is strongly reflected in Ghana culture and clothing,” says William. On his visits home he takes lots of photographs of places he grew up in and then sketches them freehand onto tracing paper so that he can best portray the natural and original feel of the scenes. He then transfers the sketched and corrected images onto heavier watercolor paper which permits him to implement numerous lifts and scrubbing to achieve the desired textures and emotional qualities of the scene.

William is internationally known for his series images of Women, Fisherman, Children and Market Scenes. His work is collected by private and well-known public figures throughout the United States and abroad (i.e., Academy Award winning Actor and Director, Forrest Whitaker; Actress, Angela Bassett; NBA Star, Tim Hardaway, just to name a few). Corporate collections include: Prudential, DuSable Museum, Disney Corp., Amoco Corp., Ford Motors, BET and Luster Products. Donated works include an original exclusively created and donated for auction to the Health and Educational Relief Organization (H.E.R.O.) for their 2014 annual fundraising gala in NY.

William’s father was a notable history professor who spent most of his teaching career at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. He came to the U.S. in the early 1980’s as a Fulbright Scholar and taught African history at Talladega College. He brought young William with him, where he received his B.A. in Sociology. His father was aware of William’s budding artistic gift which was an inheritance from William’s grandfather, who was an art teacher. However, his father hoped William would follow in his footsteps sharing the history of his people…a wish William vehemently protested initially. But divine intervention saw his father’s wish, William’s protest and inherited gift through a slightly different lens. William walks in the footsteps of his ancestors and passionately shares the history of his people and homeland with his paint brush. This past February, during the week of William’s birthday he returned home for the ceremonial celebration of his father’s life and burial. While he was/is saddened by his father’s earthly departure, he found this trip home spiritually uplifting. He basked in the reminiscing of his father with family, friends, colleagues and town folk who paid such moving tributes that are forever etched in his heart. But also on this trip home, William celebrated his birthday and the life of his father, the man who had the great foresight to bring him to the U.S. for the opportunity to embrace, cultivate and share his gift of art with the masses.

Kat Ryals (b. 1988 in Jonesboro, AR) is an artist, entrepreneur, curator and photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her mixed media artworks blend photography, craft & sculpture processes, textile materials, and found object assemblage. Ryals received a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Visual Art & an Adv. Certificate in Museum Education from Brooklyn College. She has shown her work nationally, including recent two person shows at Elijah Wheat Showroom and Ortega Y Gasset Projects, in group exhibitions with NADA, The Every Woman Biennial, ChaShaMa, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, and The Wassaic Project, and in solo booths at SPRING/BREAK Art Show. Her first solo exhibition will take place at 550 Gallery in 2025. Ryals was a 2024 artist-in-residence at the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC and has also attended residencies and fellowships at The Wassaic Project, ChaNorth, The Peter Bullough Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is a 2022 Joseph Robert Foundation grant recipient, and has been featured in The New York Times, White Hot Magazine, artnet, Forbes, and Hyperallergic.

artist photo by Tiffany Smith

Andrew Russell is a writer and director who often creates new work for theatre often inspired by real-life events, including Stu for Silverton (Intiman Theatre); John Baxter is a Switch Hitter (Intiman Theatre); Full Gallop (The Old Globe); and Sara Porkalob’s The Dragon Cycle, featuring Dragon Lady (Intiman Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, The Geffen Playhouse), Dragon Mama (American Repertory Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival), and Dragon Baby. As Producing Artistic Director of the Tony Award–winning Intiman Theatre in Seattle from 2011-2017, Andrew played a critical role in reorganizing and reopening the theater after its closure in 2011. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. @heyheyandyk & www.andrew-russell.com

artist photo by JJ Geiger

Rehman’s first novel, Corona, was chosen by the NY Public Library as one of its favorite books about NYC. She’s co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism and author of the collection poetry Marianna’s Beauty Salon. Her new novel, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, is a modern classic about what it means to be Muslim and queer from a Pakistani-American community in Queens. Roses was noted as a Best Book and Editor’s Choice by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, Good Morning America, Ms. Magazine and more.

artist photo by Andrea Dobrich

Nancy Andrews makes films, drawings, music, books and objects. Andrews is a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in filmmaking. The Museum of Modern Art has collected six of her films, and her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Franklin Furnace Archives. Her first feature film, The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes, premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2015. This project was then developed as a web series when it was one of ten projects chosen to participate in Independent Film Project’s (IFP) Screen Forward Labs and subsequently, The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes web series (YouTube) won the 2017 Gotham Award for Breakout Series (short).

The Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, Flaherty Seminars, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Film on the Rocks- Thailand, and others have presented her work. Her work was featured in the 2013 deCordova Biennial and Portland Museum of Art Biennial and a solo show at Maine’s Center for Contemporary Art (2023).

She is a participant in Artists in Context’s “Artists’ Prospectus for the Nation” in the category of health, where she and other artists are bringing their aesthetic modes of inquiry to real-world situations. Andrews is on faculty at College of the Atlantic.

artist photo by Corrine de Korver

Vern Thiessen is one of Canada’s most produced playwrights. His plays have been seen across Canada, the UK, United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia and been translated in five languages.  His works include The Divners, Of Human Bondage, Vimy, Einstein’s Gift (GG winner), Lenin’s Embalmers (GG finalist), Apple, and Shakespeare’s Will. He has been produced off-Broadway five times. Vern is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dora and Sterling awards for Outstanding New Play, The Carol Bolt Award, the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award, the City of Edmonton Arts Achievement Award, the University of Alberta Alumni Award of Excellence, The Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition, and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, Canada’s highest honour for a playwright. He was also a finalist for the Siminovich Prize in Playwriting. Vern received his B.A. from the University of Winnipeg and an M.F.A. from the University of Alberta. He has srvedas president of both the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Writers Guild of Alberta. For six years he served as Artistic Director of Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, one of Canada’s leading new play companies. He is married to acclaimed screenwriter and novelist Susie Moloney. www.vernthiessen.com

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is the author of the award-winning novel, The River Where Blood is Born and Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him, an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic works are widely published and produced, appearing in Midnight & Indigo, Aunt Chloe, Another Chicago Magazine, New Daughters of Africa, Adi Magazine, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Adi Magazine, About Place Journal, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Lifeline Theatre, and others. She also coedited the anthology, Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Professional recognition includes a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the American Library Association Black Caucus Award, the Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, a Lifeline Theatre BIPOC Adaptation Showcase, the Globe Soup Story Award, the Plentitudes Journal Prize, a Circle of Confusion Writers Discovery Fellowship, the Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and the Casa África Purorrelato Prize. She placed as a quarterfinalist in the Stage 32 Springboard Diversity Screenwriting Competition and Roadmap Writers Short Story Competition.

Sandra Jackson-Opoku taught literature and writing at the University of Miami, Columbia College Chicago, and Chicago State University. She presents workshops, readings, and literary events worldwide.

Rachel de Cuba is an interdisciplinary artist raised in Sebastian, FL. She received her BFA in Studio Art from Flagler College in 2013 and her MFA in Digital Art from Indiana University in 2019. She received recognition for her thesis work with Grant awards from Indiana University. In 2019 she was invited to create new media artworks for the New Orleans Film Festival with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Her mixed media work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, as well as selected for publication in New American Paintings Southern 2022 Edition. Her work has been selected for Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration with an invitation to exhibit at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. Rachel de Cuba is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Glenn Weiss is a public art critic, producer and artist currently studying the impact of architects, designers and digital fabricators on the world of public art.  He has managed public art programs in Times Square, Seattle and Florida including Broward County and Jacksonville and wrote several public art master plans including Miami Beach.  He served as an architecture critic for Seattle Magazine, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and ARCADE and blogged on public art for ArtsJournal.com. Special projects include the Delray Beach Cultural Loop with Rick Lowe, the Boynton Beach Kinetic Biennial, the Sealevel Rise Rauschenberg Residency, the Times Square Valentine Heart, Competition Diomede with Union of Soviet Architects, Adam’s House in Paradise and Homeless at Home. He professionally began in NYC as the co-director/curator for the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the curator for architecture at PS1 (now PS1/MoMA) after securing a Master of Architecture at Columbia University. He lives with his wife Maria Foladori Weiss in Delray Beach, Florida and teaches architecture theory at Florida Atlantic University.   More details available at www.glennweiss.com and photography on instagram at @glennweiss

Mirena Suarez is a Cuban-born multimedia artist. She received her Bachelor in Arts degree with a minor in Printmaking from the Higher Institute of Arts in Havana. She moved to the United States and furthered her studies at Florida International University and NOVA Southeastern University. Her work reflects on the atemporal universal issues of identity, connection, and change. Through a variety of media that includes mainly tile mosaic, printmaking, drawing and photography, the artist explores philosophical questions associated with the concepts of loss, memory, conception, survival, fragility, perception of time, social relationships and dynamics, and emotional communication as originators of a visual dialogue that expresses the thoughts, worries, perceptions, and the constant internal fights that she experiences. This standpoint goes beyond being auto-referential and becomes a personal expression of the universal query that rules the dynamics inherent to modern life. Mirena has extensively exhibited her work around the world, and has been awarded numerous prizes and recognitions for her artwork. She currently works as a Visual Arts teacher for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. She lives and works in Miami, FL.

Karin Lin-Greenberg’s first story collection, Faulty Predictions, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and her second story collection, Vanished, won the Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize. Her novel You Are Here was published by Counterpoint Press in 2023 and was an Indie Next pick from the American Booksellers Association. She’s received a Pushcart Prize and her stories have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, New England Review, The Southern Review, Story, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Siena College in upstate New York and also teaches fiction in Carlow University’s low-residency MFA program.

Ruth Jeyaveeran uses textiles to examine a shared history of alienation and dissociation. In her soft sculptures and fiber-based installations, the boundaries between human, animal, and flora dissolve to tell a story of isolation, migration, and evolution.

Jeyaveeran’s first solo show, Soft Remains, was exhibited at Field Projects in 2023. Other notable exhibitions include Felt Experience at the Brattleboro Museum and Communion, a solo installation at Main Window Dumbo. Her work has been featured at Smack Mellon, ABC No Rio, Westbeth Gallery, The Yard, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, The Border Project, and Bronx Art Space, among others.

Jeyaveeran has been awarded residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Residency Unlimited, Lighthouse Works, Marble House Project, Jentel Foundation, Willapa Bay, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, La Napoule Art Foundation, and PADA Studios. She is an Associate Professor of Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Nya Patrinos centers her art on giving voice to the voiceless, telling the stories of people and places that have been forgotten or left unexplored, and reinterpreting religious texts, myths, and folktales through a modern lens. As an artist and surface designer, Nya explores the realms of spirituality and identity, as well as cultural intersections. History, memory, light, wind, climate, temperature, the moon, and stars all form the tapestry of her artistry, weaving together to chronicle a cohesive story.  Nya received an Emmy nomination in Art Direction/Set Decoration for the TV series Transparent.  Website: www.nyapatrinos.com

Morgan Hill is a sculptor and jewelry designer whose work draws on a wide range of aesthetic and conceptual influences from 90’s pop culture, campy cinema, and costume design to her Southern, Christian upbringing and experiences as the only female child in an extended family of farmers in Arkansas. Her longing to break the silence surrounding culturally censured topics drives her to create work on themes of illness, abuse, depression, and suicide, as well as their counterparts of rebirth, healing, and empowerment. On the lighter side, her jewelry brand Bad Habits by Morgan Hill celebrates the pleasure of excess and indulged desires.

Morgan’s formal art education began at the Memphis College of Art where she focused on drawing. She also studied interior design and ultimately earned a BFA in Woodworking and Furniture Design from the University of Arkansas Little Rock. She was a Core Fellow at the Penland School of Craft from 2015-2017 where she worked with renowned artists and designers and studied techniques ranging from chainsaw carving to metalwork to neon tube bending. In 2018, she was an ITE Windgate Fellow at the Center for Art in Wood, and in 2022, she was awarded the Chrysalis Award by the James Renwick Alliance. Her work is carried in galleries across the US and internationally. She creates her work at Treats Studios in Spruce Pine, NC, a studio cooperative she co-founded.

Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the 2023 historical novel One Brilliant Flame, set amidst the nineteenth-century anticolonial Cuban insurgent community in Key West; Flight Risk, a finalist for a 2022 International Thriller Award; the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award, and Nearer Home, which have both been published in France by Gallimard’s historic Série Noire; the story collection How Winter Began; the memoir The Truth Book; and the essay collection Island of Bones, which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also the editor of the craft anthology Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family and the founding series editor of Machete, a series in innovative literary nonfiction at The Ohio State University Press. Her work has appeared in venues including Ploughshares, The Brooklyn Rail, Senses of Cinema, Salon, Gulf Coast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine. A former Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies (Latinx Studies) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she directs the Institute for Ethnic Studies. With translator and co-editor Rhi Johnson, she edited the bilingual edition of the 1918 poetry collection Lágrimas y flores by Feliciano Castro, forthcoming in October, 2024 from the University Press of Florida.

Barbara Boissevain is a California based contemporary visual artist and photographer whose work focuses on the impact of human activity on the environment. Nature’s ability to regenerate and reclaim human altered landscapes is a central theme in her work.

Boissevain was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Silicon Valley. She studied painting at Parsons School of Design in New York before immersing herself in photography, earning a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from San Jose State University.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including Mémoire De L’Avenir, Paris; the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA; Galerie Numero Cinq, Arles, France; and the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. From 2014 to 2021, she was an artist in residence with the City of Palo Alto’s Cubberley Artist Studio Program. In 2018 she was an artist in residence at Galerie Huit in Arles, France. She was invited to Atelier 11 for a solo residency through L’AiR Arts international residency program in Paris in July 2022. In the Summer of 2023 she was honored to participate in the Cycladic Arts Residency in Paros Greece.

In 2009 Boissevain published her first book, titled Children of the Rainbow, which documented the humanitarian challenges facing Quechua communities in Peru due to climate change. In 2021 her work was featured on NPR’s “The Picture Show” in conjunction with the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. She was also featured on the PBS News show Something Beautiful in 2022.

Her book “Salt of the Earth” was published by Kehrer Verlag in the Fall of 2023, and was chosen as one of Wired Magazine’s best photo books of 2023.

Boissevain’s photographs are in numerous public and private collections, including the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.; the Google Corporate Art Collection, Sunnyvale, CA; and the De Pietri Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland

R. Eric Thomas (he/him) is a national bestselling author, playwright, and screenwriter. His books include, Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, which was featured as a Read with Jenna pick on NBC’s Today, the YA novel Kings of B’more, a 2023 American Library Association Stonewall Honor book, and Congratulations, the Best Is Over!, an instant USA Today Bestseller. He also writes the daily, nationally syndicated advice column “Asking Eric.” For his playwriting, Eric has won the Barrymore Award for Best New Play, the Dramatist Guild Lanford Wilson Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and was a finalist for the O’Neill Conference and the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. On screen, he wrote for the Peabody Award-winning series Dickinson on AppleTV+ and Better Things on FX and is currently developing multiple film and television projects, including a half hour comedy based on his memoir. Off the page, Eric is also the long-running host of The Moth StorySlams in Philadelphia, and has been heard multiple times on The Moth Radio Hour. Website: rericthomas.com

Lisa Morehouse is an award-winning public radio reporter and editor. Her series California Foodways is a county-by-county exploration of stories at the intersection of food, culture, history, economics, labor and the environment. The stories air on KQED’s The California Report Magazine, national shows, and on the California Foodways podcast. The series received a national Edward R. Murrow Award and four James Beard nominations, and Morehouse was named a fellow for the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, and Les Dames d’Escoffier San Francisco Karola Saekel Craib Excellence In Food Journalism Fellowship.

Morehouse is the Senior Editor for KALW Public Radio’s news magazine, Crosscurrents, where she helps train new audio journalists. Her first career was in public education, teaching middle school in rural Georgia, building an educational non-profit in Arizona, and spending a decade teaching high school in San Francisco.

Lee Jensen is a Danish textile artist. Lee grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, and now lives and works in Queens, New York. She holds a BFA degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Lee Jensen creates contemporary abstract quilts and hand-sewn stretched textile pieces. Her work is influenced by her urban environment and by a life-long connection to sewing and textiles.

Jensen is the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)/Queens Art Fund 2024 New Work Grant. In 2023-24 she was awarded participation in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic and Queens Chronicle.

Christopher Castellani has published five books, most of which center on the Italian, Italian-American, and/or queer experience. His most recent novel is Leading Men, for which he received Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Leading Men was published in February 2019 by Viking Penguin, and is currently being adapted for film by Peter Spears (Oscar-winning producer of Nomadland) and acclaimed Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name).

The Art of Perspective: Who Tells the Story, a collection of essays on point of view in fiction, was published in 2016 by Graywolf Press, and is taught in many creative writing workshops.

His first novel, A Kiss from Maddalena (Algonquin, 2003) won the Massachusetts Book Award in 2004; its follow-up, The Saint of Lost Things (Algonquin, 2005), was a BookSense (IndieBound) Notable Book; the final novel in the trilogy, All This Talk of Love (Algonquin, 2013), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Literary Award.

Christopher is currently on the faculty and academic board of the Warren Wilson MFA program and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Since 2019, he has chaired the Writing Panel at YoungArts, aka the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. For nearly twenty years, Christopher was in executive leadership at GrubStreet, where he founded the Muse and the Marketplace national literary conference and led the development of numerous artistic programs for adults, teens, and seniors.

The son of Italian immigrants and a native of Wilmington, DE, Christopher was educated at Swarthmore College, received his Masters in English Literature from Tufts University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Boston University. He lives in Boston and Provincetown, MA, where he is completing his fifth novel with the support of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Andrew Shaffer is the New York Times bestselling author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery, the children’s picture book Mothman’s Merry Cryptid Christmas (which he also illustrated), and over two dozen other books in multiple genres, including mystery, horror, and humor. He is a five-time Goodreads Choice Award nominee and a two-time finalist in the Humor category. His most recent book is the fully illustrated Literary Cats Coloring Book, featuring feline versions of famous authors from “Jane Pawsten” to “Furnest Hemingway.” An Iowa native and frequent visitor to the Keys, Shaffer lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, novelist Meg Shaffer.

Dylan Mabika is a 23 year old passionate hyperrealism artist on a journey of self-discovery and expression. Despite having no academic background in art, he has dedicated himself to creating art that resonates with the heart and speaks to the soul. For Dylan, art provides peace to his soul and mind unlike anything else, and it has become his passion.

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Dylan has always been drawn to art, evident from his early days in primary school where he started and loved drawing. At the age of 16, he decided to take his art seriously after being inspired by an older student who refused to share his skills and knowledge. This sparked Dylan’s determination to teach himself to draw, marking the beginning of his artistic journey.

In 2017, Dylan created his first drawing of a human face, and in 2018, he passed his O’ level with 7 subjects. Due to financial constraints, he couldn’t attend an art school or a high school with art as a subject, so he refined his drawing skills on his own. In 2019, Dylan entered his first art competition and won a gold medal for coming first place in his age group in a national competition, also being announced as the best overall in the art category.

Since then, Dylan has experimented with various mediums like charcoal pencils, watercolor pencils, colour pencils and pastel color pencils and he is eager to learn more. He dropped out of school in 2019 to focus on art and support his family financially. Dylan’s life experiences and his aspirations inspire him to create art that provides a space for reflection and imagination, where each viewer can find a piece of themselves reflected back.

Dylan hopes to own a gallery with a spacious studio equipped with art materials and a positive atmosphere, where he can work as an artist and photographer. He also aims to give back to the less privileged artists in schools like his, providing them with art materials and knowledge. Dylan believes that art has the power to heal, inspire, and transform, offering solace and hope in times of uncertainty and despair.

Deborah Zlotsky received a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowships in Painting in 2012 and 2018. Her work is in a variety of public, private and corporate collections in the US and abroad and she has been awarded recent residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bogliasco Foundation, Two Coats of Paint, and the Bemis Center. Zlotsky is represented by Markel Fine Arts and McKenzie Fine Art, both  in New York, Robischon Gallery in Denver, and Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta.  She has a BA in art history from Yale University and an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Connecticut. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and lives in the Hudson Valley.

Allyson Morgan is an award-winning writer, producer, and performer. Allyson’s first short film Need For Speed (Dating) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, while her next short, Sitting, won “Outstanding Narrative Short” at Tallgrass Film Festival. First Date, her short film produced by 20th Digital Studio, is currently airing on Hulu in their “Bite Size Halloween” series. Allyson adapted First Date into a feature film for Hulu, titled Jagged Mind, which the LA Times called “edgy” and “powerful.” Her newest short, The Ghost, which also serves as her directorial debut, made its world premiere at the RiverRun International Film Festival in 2024. She has also been selected for the New York Stage and Film Filmmakers’ Workshop, been awarded “Best Teleplay” at Omaha Film Festival, twice been a top ten Finalist for Cinequest, a Finalist at Stowe Story Labs, and a Semi-Finalist at Austin Film Festival. Additionally, she has been awarded an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Commission, a Djerassi Artist Residency (California), an NG Art Creative Residency (France), a Monson Arts Residency (Maine), a Vashon Artist Residency (Washington), a Wassaic Project “Haunted Mill” residency (NY),  and multiple Juno Leadership Residencies through the Omega Institute (NY). Allyson has two novels, Don’t Want To Remember You and The Perfect Place, currently available through Tapas Media. She is represented for literary by Heroes and Villains Entertainment. More: allysonm.com

Brittany Reeber is a writer and director living in NYC whose work spans narrative, music video, documentary and commercial mediums. Originally from the Sunshine State, she has inherited an affection for oddball characters and humid climates. Her work reflects the humor, tenderness, and spirit found in the lesser known corners of America — sometimes, there’s a choreographed dance sequence.

She has received grants and residencies from American Documentary, Kodak, The Austin Film Society, Caldera Arts, Cucalorus, The Bend Film Festival, The Studios of Key West, among others. Her most recent film, STUCK, an existential stoner comedy, just finished a successful run on the film festival circuit after premiering at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival in 2023, and her feature script, SALT SPRINGS, a Florida climate dramedy, is currently in development.

Her music videos have appeared in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR and Billboard Magazine. In 2023, she directed NYC comedian Fareeha Khan’s solo show I ACTUALLY DON’T FEEL THAT GOOD to sold out audiences. While at The Studios of Key West, she’ll continue to explore the ways in which the Florida landscape, culture and environmental conflicts, play a vital role in her work.

John Graham’s ever-diversifying visual art practice includes printmaking, artist’s books, painting, drawing, installations, and digital imaging. This artwork has been widely exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia. John is also the writer, producer, director and editor of 10 short films that have been screened at over 220 venues in over 40 countries. Many of these arthouse films have won awards or received nominations for awards. STILL HERE / IMMERDAR (2024) is his 10th short film that poetically explores the theme of dying beautifully.

Andrée B. Carter was born and raised in New Orleans. She also lived in Seattle and Los Angeles, but now resides full-time in Palm Desert. Andrée received an MFA from The University of New Orleans and a BS from Loyola University in New Orleans (Cum Laude). She also studied art history in Florence, Italy through a Tulane University summer program.

In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions, Andrée has been honored with painting fellowships from the Bau Institute held in Otranto, Italy; the Virginia Center for Creative Art, Amherst, VA; and the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, WY. She is also a Kipaipai Fellow, a special program focusing on participants to build their professional network. Andrée’s latest residency was in November 2023 at the Cycladic Arts Residency on the Greek island of Paros.

Furthermore, Andrée has received several accolades, including the Artistic Selection Award from the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA and the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA. In 2022, she received a Jurors award from the Artist Council Exhibition in Palm Desert. Andrée was also honored to be one of 30 artists chosen for the Rancho Mirage Festival of the Arts, in November 2022.

Andrée’s was recently in an exhibition in Los Angeles at Gallery 825 called “Soul of a City.” This group exhibition of Swiss and American artists was also recently shown in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Andrée’s work is included in numerous private and public collections, most notably in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA; Swedish Hospital, Seattle, WA; and the Iberia Bank, New Orleans and Shreveport, LA.

Faith Adiele is the author of four experimental chapbooks about her Nigerian-Nordic-American heritage and Meeting Faith, an award-winning account of becoming Thailand’s first Black Buddhist Nun that is widely taught in American universities. Her media credits include My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about finding her family, HBO-Max’s A World of Calm, and Sleep Stories for the Calm meditation app. Her essays appear in O: The Oprah Magazine, Essence, OkayAfrica, Smithsonian Folklife, and numerous anthologies. She founded the nation’s first writing workshop for travelers of color and African Book Club at San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora. Named one of Marie Claire magazine’s “Five Women to Learn From,” Adiele chairs the Writing & Literature Program at California College of the Arts and speaks and teaches around the world.  

Franck Hodelin is an artist and interior designer from New York City . Straddling the boundary of realism and abstraction, his figurative oil paintings feature profoundly intimate portraits of men in an array of settings. In 2023, Hodelin was a recipient of the Warner Bros. Discovery 150 Grant. He also received grants from the New York City Artists Corps and a Queens Council on the Arts “New Works Grant” in 2020 to create a series of work that was featured in a solo show at Local Projects Gallery in Long Island City, NY.

Recent exhibitions include a 2-person show at the Chashama Gallery in New York City; the Long Island City Artists “Heritage” group show at Queens College; Greene County Council on the Arts “New Perspective: Selected Works of Artists From the African Diaspora.” Franck received a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He currently lives and works in Sunnyside, NY.

image: “Sit and Reflect” (oil paint on wood panel, 40 x 60″)

A multi-faceted force, Sarah Dahnke is a choreographer, director and arts educator deeply committed to encouraging communities to use performance to reclaim narratives stripped away by colonialism. As a practitioner, Sarah specializes in devised performance for stage and screen.  Sarah has also been a MAP Fund awardee, an NEA Our Town-funded resident artist, and an awardee of fellowships from Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice, Colt Coeur, Target Margin Institute, New Victory LabWorks, and Culture Push. She has received commissions from Little Island, PEN America and A Studio in the Woods and has been in residence at Abrons Arts Center and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. She was recently the Associate Director for the Off-Broadway play STILL. She was the 2022-23 Opera Columbus Directing Fellow and has gone on to direct opera productions of Carmen and Hydrogen Jukebox. Her dance film work has been screened through the Dance Films Association, Tiny Dance Film Festival, DanceBarn Collective, BRIC, and Movies By Movers.  She is a graduate of ITP|NYU, where she specialized in studying the intersection of performance and technology. 

Sarah is also the artistic director of Dances for Solidarity, a project that co-creates choreography with people affected by the criminal legal system and performs for public audiences as advocacy toward prison abolition. Learn more at sarahdahnke.com and dancesforsolidarity.com.

Kota Bowen is an interdisciplinary artist based in Milwaukee, Wi specializing in ceramic sculpture. With a printmaking degree from University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee they have a rich background in drawing, and other narrative forms. They have ten years experience working professionally in clay and freelancing as an illustrator. Much of their work is inspired by mythology and classical paintings with a contemporary graphic twist.  

Josh Aronson (b. 1994, Toronto, Canada) is a photographer based in Miami. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Northwestern University. His work reclaims and redefines Southern manliness, presenting tender portrayals of young men against the backdrop of Florida’s landscapes. His photography emphasizes vulnerability, introspection, and emotional complexity, challenging dominant narratives of masculinity. Aronson’s visual storytelling is rooted in his own experiences growing up in Florida, where the natural environment and cultural history serve as constant inspirations.

J Wortham (they/them) is a sound healer, reiki practitioner, herbalist, and community care worker oriented towards healing justice and liberation. They are also a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, and co-host of the podcast ‘Still Processing,’ With Kimberly Drew, they co-edited Black Futures, a visual anthology and compendium of radical, imaginative, and provocative art by contemporary Black creators. J is also currently working on a book about the body and dissociation for Penguin Press. J mostly lives and works on stolen Munsee Lenape land, now known as Brooklyn, New York, and is committed to decolonization as a way of life.

Eric Pankey, who received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1983, is the author of seventeen collections of poems: For the New Year (Atheneum 1984), which was selected as the winner of the Walt Whitman Award by Mark Strand, Heartwood(Atheneum 1988), which was reissued by Orchises Press in 1998,  Apocrypha (Alfred A. Knopf 1991), The Late Romances (Alfred A. Knopf 1997), Cenotaph (Alfred A. Knopf 2000), Oracle Figures (Ausable Press 2003), Reliquaries (Ausable Press 2005), The Pear as One Example: New and Selected Poems (Ausable Press 2008), Trace (Milkweed Editions 2013), Dismantling the Angel (Free Verse Editions 2013), which won the New Measures Prize, Crow-Work (Milkweed Editions 2015), Augury (Milkweed Editions 2017), Owl of Minerva (Milkweed Editions 2019), Alias: Prose Poems (Free Verse Editions 2020), Not Yet Transfigured (Orison Books 2021), The History of the Siege (Codhill Press 2024).  A collection of essays, Vestiges: Notes, Responses, & Essays 1988-2018 appeared from Parlor Press in 2019.

His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in such journals as The Iowa Review, The Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Yale Review. His work has been supported by fellowships from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Brown Foundation.

Ernest Gold is a successful writer and director, who has worked in the United States and Austrian film industries for over 15 years, specializing in creating outstanding genre movies and tv shows. His work includes character driven dramas, heartfelt comedies, as well as stunt and effect heavy action films. Ernest is the co-creator and writer of the first ever Austrian AMAZON PRIME VIDEO series “Beasts Like Us”, released in 2024. He’s the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, and alum of the prestigious NYU Tisch – School of the Arts and Filmacademy Vienna.