Isela Xitlali Gómez
Isela Xitlali Gómez R.(she/her/hers) is an East LA/Inland Empire transplant who writes to piece together broken stories of family, trauma, healing, and travel a la Southern California. Isela is a 2015 Winner of the Loft Literary Center's Mentor Series in Creative Nonfiction, a 2017 Beyond the Pure Fellow through Intermedia Arts, and a 2020 fellow of the the Loft Literary Center’s Mirrors and Windows program. Her essay, “It Happened in Fragments,” can be found in “How Dare We! Write.” Due to everything that 2020 and 2021 have brought us - including limiting the number of trips to the market - she has revisited the art of making tortillas at home, with her own hands, a pinch of salt, and a lot of prayers.
Paula Cisewski
Paula Cisewski's fourth poetry collection, Quitter, won the Diode Editions Book Prize. She is also the author of The Threatened Everything, Ghost Fargo (Nightboat Poetry Prize winner, selected by Franz Wright), Upon Arrival, and several chapbooks, including the lyric prose Misplaced Sinister. Her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and included in the recent or forthcoming anthologies Privacy Policy: The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics, 78: A Tarot Anthology, Rocked by the Waters: Poems of Motherhood, Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, and New Poetry from the Midwest. She teaches writing privately and academically, makes things, and collaborates with fellow artists and activists.
Lisa Marie Brimmer
Lisa Marie Brimmer (they/them) is a poet, essayist and theatre artist born on Ho-Chunk/ Sauk/ Miami/ Meskwaki land living now in Mnisota Makoce in so-called Minneapolis, MN. In 2020 their work appeared in Gasher Journal, The Public Art Review, and La Raza Cómica and is forthcoming from Denver's literary mag The B'K. In 2019, Brimmer co-edited the anthology Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride and they now co-curate the Queer Voices Reading series along with Sherrie Fernandez-Williams. They are also a member of FREE BLACK DIRT, an educator at Century College, and freelance facilitator/consultant.
Joe Davis
Joe Davis (he/him) is a nationally-touring artist, educator, and speaker based in Minneapolis, MN. He employs poetry, music, theater, and dance to shape culture.
His work has been featured on BET, CNN, and VH1. He is the Founder and Director of multimedia production company, The New Renaissance, the frontman of emerging soul funk band, The Poetic Diaspora, and co-creator of JUSTmove, racial justice education through art. He has keynoted, facilitated conversation, and served as teaching artist at hundreds of high schools and universities including New York, Boston, and most recently as the Artist-in-Residence at Luther Seminary where he earned a Masters in Theology of the Arts. Visit JoeDavisPoetry.com for booking inquiries, to connect, or learn more!