SOREN LIT

Malika Hadley Freydberg- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Malika Hadley Freydberg is a multi-medium performance and visual artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She’s a four time national slam poet, and has graced the final stage in two of those four competitions. She’s had a fascination with magick and Conjure Women since she read “Mama Day” by Gloria Naylor at age 9, and became determined to become a woman of magick from that day forward. She works as a tour guide, sharing the history and folklore of Southern Louisiana, which has informed most of her work since 2016.Malika is a Sode in Ifa, an Olorisa of Oya upon completion of initiation at Temple Yemoja in Ibadan, Nigeria in 2019, and Priestess of Osun and Obatala in Louisiana Plantation Vodou as of July 2021. She’s been an eclectic Conjurer since she began praying to the moon at 14. She’s read tarot cards for 22 years, and cowries for 8.  She is also a proud member of the choir at First Grace United Methodist Church in Midcity New Orleans; she sees this as the honoring of as many branches of her ancestry as possible.Malika holds a B.A. in Arts Management-Music from Bennett College in Greensboro, NC (HBCU PRIDE!), and a Masters in Music Education, focus in Choral Conducting and Ethnomusicology from Georgia State. She lives in a house with a purple door with her wife and three cats~ the culmination of every love-obsessed queer witch, in her opinion.

SOREN LIT FOUNDING EDITOR & PODCAST HOST: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Soniah Kamal- Fall Issue 2021, SOREN LIT

Soniah Kamal is an award winning novelist, essayist and public speaker. Her most recent novel, Unmarriageable: Pride & Prejudice in Pakistan (Penguin Random House USA), a post colonial parallel retelling of Jane Austen’s classic, is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, is a New York Public Library and an NPR Code Switch Summer Read Pick, a Library Reads and People’s Magazine pick, a 2019 ‘Books All Georgians Should Read,’ a 2020 Georgia Author of the Year for Literary Fiction nominee, is shortlisted for the 2020 Townsend Award for Fiction, and hailed as a novel that writes back to Empire, and more.

SOREN LIT Founding editor and podcast host: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Danyelle Briggs is a junior studying Public Relations and Politics at Oglethorpe University. This summer she is prepping for the publication for her first novel A Darker Hue of You. On campus, she is apart of ten organizations ranging from the cheerleading team to the robotics club. When she’s not writing, you can catch her reading novels and using Pinterest for writing motivation. After graduation next spring, Danyelle plans to attend law school and become a criminal defense lawyer while continuing her dreams of becoming a New York Times bestselling author.

SOREN LIT podcast host and Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Shi Evans is a research/project assistant for the Sports and Race Initiative at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  She started writing after leaving the FBI to live in South Korea on military orders with her spouse. Shi draws on years of travel experience and meeting interesting people to write captivating stories. She wrote Whiskey Road and will release her second novel this fall. Her publishing company, Georgetown Literary, has also published  the novel Faith for Ava. Shi writes academic articles for publication with the museum as well.                   Shi is an alumna of Savannah State University and has a master of public administration.

SOREN LIT podcast host and Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Lost Girls, a collection of short stories called "a varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form" by Kirkus Reviews. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, and Santa Fe Literary Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

SOREN LIT Editor and Podcast Host: Melodie J Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Lost Girls, a collection of short stories called "a varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form" by Kirkus Reviews. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, and Santa Fe Literary Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

SOREEN LIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Tia King (she/they) is a 20 year old musician, creative writer, and teaching artist hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. She is an Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador an well as Youth Speaks’ 2018 MC Olympian, as awarded to her by Brave New Voices International Festival and Poetry Slam. Her work has been published by VOX Teen Communications and in Oglethorpe University’s “The Tower.” In her Hometown, Tia continues to amplify inner city youth voices as Atlanta Word Works’ lead facilitator and collective coach.

Guest: Tia King

SORENLIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Arden Eli Hill is a genderqueer (he or they) white writer from Louisiana.  To preorder a copy of Bloodwater Parish (an exploration of gender, sexuality, race, and adoption in poems) forthcoming from Seven Kitchen's press, please email Arden at [email protected].  Arden's recent and forthcoming publications include Hip Mama, Trans Bodies Trans Selves, Strange Horizons, and The Wellesley Review. is a genderqueer (he or they) white writer from Louisiana.  To preorder a copy of Bloodwater Parish (an exploration of gender, sexuality, race, and adoption in poems) forthcoming from Seven Kitchen's press, please email Arden at [email protected].  Arden's recent and forthcoming publications include Hip Mama, Trans Bodies Trans Selves, Strange Horizons, and The Wellesley Review.

Guest:Arden Eli Hill 

SOREN LIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor- Meloddie J. Rodgers

WWW.sorenlit.com

Ariana Francesca Thomas- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ariana Francesca is a Black, mother poet of the Deep South, born and raised in Jonesboro, Georgia. Her work explores the positions, reflections, and interconnectedness of Black motherhood, womanhood, spirit and epic memory. 

SOREN LIT podcast host- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Courtney LeBlanc- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full length collections Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, July 2021),  Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, March 2020), The Violence Within (Flutter Press, 2018, currently out of print), and All in the Family (Bottlecap Press, 2016, currently out of print) , and a Pushcart Prize  and Best of the Net nominee. She has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning.

SOREN LIT podcast host & Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com