Curtis L. Hill Jr. (s.P. The Writer)
Curtis L. Hill Jr., better known as s.P. The Writer (s.P. = silent poet) in poetry circles, is a resident of Raleigh, NC by way of Maysville, North Carolina. As a silent poet, s.P. created the umbrella poetry entertainment company, S DOT P DOT PRODUCTIONS, that houses 3 productions including Body Of Work (erotic), In Other Words, and the powerhouse, one of a kind, flagship production Inkspired.
Naima Yetunde Hammonds
Naima is a native of Brooklyn, New York, has been calling Raleigh, NC her home for almost a decade. Naima’s traveled throughout NYC and beyond performing poetry since 2004, she’s a five time published author, her latest undertaking, Pure, a poetic memoir that resonates deeply with readers, is a reflection of her outstanding talent and raw emotion, Pure was released November 3, 2020.
Chris Tonelli
Chris Tonelli is a co-founder of the independent poetry press Birds, LLC. He is the author of five chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections, most recently Whatever Stasis from Barrelhouse Books. He works in the Libraries at NC State University and is the co-director of the NC Book Festival and co-owner of So & So Books in Raleigh, where he lives with his wife Allison and their kids Miles and Vera.
Crystal Simone Smith
CRYSTAL SIMONE SMITH is the author of three poetry chapbooks, Routes Home (Finishing Line Press, 2013) Running Music (Longleaf Press, 2014), and Down To Earth (Longleaf Press, 2020). She co-authored, One Window’s Light, A Collection of Haiku, edited by Lenard D. Moore (2017), which won the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award for Best Haiku Anthology. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Prairie Schooner, POETRY Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku.
Fred Joiner
Fred Joiner is a poet and curator based in Chapel Hill, NC. He is 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. His work has appeared in Callaloo, Gargoyle, and Fledgling Rag, among other publications. Fred has read his work nationally and internationally. Joiner has received awards and fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Image Courtesy of Thomas Sayers Ellis
Gale Greenlee
E. Gale Greenlee is a book nerd, freelance writer/editor and an independent literary and Black Girlhood Studies scholar from Greensboro, N.C. She holds a doctorate in African American literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her work focuses on representations of Black and Latinx girlhoods in kids and young adult literature. An aspiring children’s author, she’s currently writing about Black children and green spaces and researching the history of Black crafts at Berea College.
Regina Carter Garcia
Regina YC Garcia is an award winning Poet, Language Artist, and English Professor from Greenville, NC. She is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received a BA in Speech Communication with a Concentration in the Oral Interpretation of Literature and East Carolina University where she received a Master’s in Adult Education and a Graduate Certificate in Multicultural and Transnational Literature. Her book, The Firetalker’s Daughter from Finishing Line Press is due for release in March 2023.
