United Against Silence

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart and two essay collections: Abandon Me and Girlhood. The inaugural winner of the Jeanne Córdova Nonfiction Award from LAMBDA Literary and the recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The BAU Institute, Vermont Studio Center, The Barbara Deming Foundation, and others; her essays have recently appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Granta, Sewanee Review, Tin House, The Sun, and The New York Times. She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

Purvi Shah’s favorite art practices are her sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice. She won the inaugural SONY South Asian Social Service Excellence Award for her leadership fighting violence against women. Her new book, Miracle Marks, explores women, the sacred, and gender & racial equity. Terrain Tracks, her debut poetry collection on migration and belonging, won the Many Voices Project prize. Find more @PurviPoets.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

Christina Olivares is the author of the books of poetry No Map of the Earth Includes Stars, winner of the 2014 Marsh Hawk Press Book Prize, and Ungovernable, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2021. Olivares is a queer American-Cuban from the Bronx. She believes in the abolition of poverty and of the carceral state and in the radical project of imagining  our liberation. She works as an educator.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

Bryan Doerries is a writer, director, and translator, who currently serves as Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions. A self-described evangelist for ancient stories and their relevance to our lives today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and communities heal from trauma and loss.

During his tenure at Theater of War Productions, the company has presented diverse projects across the United States and internationally. The company uses dramatic readings of seminal plays and community conversations to confront topics such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-life care, police and community relations, prison reform, gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, the refugee crisis, and addiction.

Doerries’ books include The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today, The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, and a collection of his translations of ancient Greek Tragedies entitled All That You’ve Seen Here is God. Among his awards, he has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon College, and in March 2017, he was named Public Artist in Residence (PAIR) for the City of New York, a joint appointment with the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services and Department of Cultural Affairs.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

Hannah Grieco is a writer, editor, and teacher in Arlington, VA. Her work can be found in a variety of publications, from The Washington Post to The Rumpus to Huffington Post, and more. She is the cnf editor at JMWW, the fiction editor at Porcupine Literary, and the founder and organizer of the monthly reading series 'Readings on the Pike.' Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on Twitter at @writesloud.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

Jive Poetic is a writer, organizer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder of Insurgent Poets Society, Carnival Slam: Cultural Exchange, and the co-founder of the Brooklyn Poetry Slam. When he is not on tour or hosting, he teaches performance poetry and hip – hop workshops to at risk youth in New York City and surrounding tri-state area.

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.

For more information about Community Building Art Works visit www.cbaw.org.

Susanna Sonnenberg is the author of two memoirs, Her Last Death and She Matters: A Life in Friendships, both New York Times bestsellers. She has published widely in magazines and anthologies and, since 2013 has been teaching writing with a focus on memoir. She lives in Missoula, Montana.

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Dr. Nisha Gupta is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia. She has nine years of training as a psychotherapist, with a focus on empowerment in the face of personal and societal traumas. She is also an arts-based phenomenological researcher, which is a method of creating artwork that illuminates the deeper meanings of our lived experiences for the purposes of fostering personal and societal awareness, catharsis, and transformation.

[email protected]

www.desieros.com www.phenomenologicalart.com

@artbynisha

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Ben Weakley spent fourteen years in the U.S. Army, beginning with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and finishing at a desk inside the Pentagon. He writes poetry and essays about the enduring nature of war and the human experience.

His work appears in the anthology, "Our Best War Stories" published by Middle West Press, LLC. Other poems and articles appear in Army University Press, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, The Ekphrastic Review, and Vita Brevis, among other publications.

https://www.clippings.me/benweakley

Book: Our Best War Stories: Our Best War Stories: Prize-winning Poetry & Prose from the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards  (Amazon - https://amzn.to/2Ijev1E)

Find out more about Community Building Art Works at www.cbaw.org.