| | Although her first dream was to be a backup dancer for former hip-hop artist Heavy D, Taiyon J Coleman is a writer, educator and consultant, and her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Currently completing her first novel, Chicago @ 15, Taiyon lives in Minneapolis with her family.
Heid E. Erdrich is Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain. She is author of four collections of poetry and co-editor of Sister Nations: Native American Writers on Community. Her most recent book is Original Local: Indigenous Foods, Stories, and Recipes from the Upper Midwest. She mentors MFA students at Augsburg College.
Venessa Fuentes is from the Twin Cities. She is also from its arts, queer, and POC communities. Her writing has been anthologized, read at poetry picnics, shared at the dinner table, and turned into public art. Along with her son and her wife, Venessa claims the south side of Minneapolis as Home.
Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color, a young adult novel. Her writing has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The Crisis, Gawker, and other venues. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, she lives with her husband and children in Minneapolis.
David Lawrence Grant has written drama for the stage, film, and television, as well as fiction and memoir. He has written major reports on racial bias in the justice system for the Minnesota Supreme Court and on racial disparities in the health care system for the Minnesota legislature. He teaches screenwriting at Independent Filmmaker Project/Minnesota.
Carolyn Holbrook, recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant and the Minnesota Book Awards’ Kay Sexton Award, is the author of Ordinary People, Extraordinary Journeys and the founder of SASE: The Write Place (now merged with Intermedia Arts). |
