Jade Sylvan is one of the standout artists in the Boston Collectivist art movement. She's an award-winning, internationally-touring poet and nonfiction writer whose poetry and essays have been published in The Toast, BuzzFeed, PANK, and over twenty more journals, websites, and magazines. She's the author of the autobiographical novel Kissing Oscar Wilde (Write Bloody Press, 2013) and the poetry collection The Spark Singer (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2009). In 2012, she cowrote and starred in the feature film TEN (2014), and wrote the accompanying novel. Jade’s received artist grants from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Amethyst Arsenic, and was nominated “Best Poet” by the Boston Phoenix newspaper in 2013. Jade can be seen frequently getting up to queer feminist performative no-good on- and offstage in and around Cambridge.
Jennifer Jean’s most recent poetry collection is The Fool (Big Table Publishing). Other poetry collections include: The Archivist, Fishwife, and In the War; as well, she's released Fishwife Tales, a collaborative CD comprised of art songs and accompanied recitations. Her poetry and prose have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including: Drunken Boat, Tidal Basin Review, Denver Quarterly, Caketrain, Poetica, and The Mom Egg Journal. Jennifer is a volunteer blogger for Amirah, a website advocating for sex-trafficking survivors; she’s a principal organizer of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival; and, she teaches writing at Salem State University. For more about Jennifer, visit: www.fishwifetales.com.
Kemi Alabi is a poet, performer and teaching artist from Mequon, WI. In September, she earned her BA in Political Science & Philosophy from Boston University, where she spent three years facilitating weekly writing and performance workshops with spoken word collective Speak for Yourself. She currently lives in Boston, where she writes and performs work on the double consciousness and malformation of marginalized identities within the dominant culture.
Ricky Orng is a Cambodian-American writer and performer based in Lowell Massachusetts. He is the Director of Lowell's Youth Spoken Word organization, FreeVerse! - and coaches their slam team who placed 2nd in Louder Than A Bomb Massachusetts 2013. His writing reflects on being 2nd generation American, dealing with Asian stereotypes and the consequences of The Khmer Rouge. Ricky is a Gemini, loves Autumn, bikes occasionally and photographs people for fun. His work can be found on www.poetrybyrickyorng.tumblr.com