Rachel Coonce is a graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. She has been awarded the Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction by New Letters magazine, an Independent Artist Award by the Maryland Start Arts Council, and an honorable mention in The Missouri Review’s Miller Audio Prize. She is cofounder of The Inner Loop, a literary arts nonprofit in Washington, DC, and she is creator, executive producer, and cohost of The Inner Loop Radio, a creative writing podcast. Visit her website at rachelcoonce.com.
Kariz Marcel is the founder and owner of Blakwater Production House, a Baltimore-based creative hub that has collaborated with major networks and recording artists. His credits include Jidenna’s 85 to Africa, Cartoon Network’s Iyanu, and projects with Netflix, HBO, and Sony Records. A OneBeat U.S. State Department Fellow and former Advisor for the DC Grammy Chapter, Kariz has built a career bridging music, technology, and education.
Poem
Year: 2021
The American Audit
The sold-out debut performance of The American Audit, a 2019-2020 poetry and mapping project chronicling 400 years of Black American life using the extended metaphor of America as a business audited by African Americans after centuries of marginalization. The American Audit is a performance art piece consisting of original poetic verse, audio and video interviews with history and culture experts, and visceral imagery. Its function: to creatively assess the accrued toll on humanity afforded to people once considered property.
Medium: Video
Year: 2020
http://www.rosemoraesmusic.com/en/
Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, Rob Lee is a podcaster who has been creating his entire life – including painting, writing comics, and poetry.
Clare Banks is associate editor for Smartish Pace. A recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Awards, her poems have
appeared in or are forthcoming in Boulevard, Poetry South, Poet Lore, and the Mississippi Review, among others. She has an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland and lives in Baltimore City.
Nguyên Khôi Nguyễn is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator. He is the cartoonist of the Ignatz nominated comic series, The Gulf. Nguyen’s work has been featured in The New Yorker, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and Medium. He is the vocalist/pianist of the jazz trio, Superior Cling, and he is a digital media lecturer at Loyola University Maryland. As a 2021 Rubys Artist Grantee, Nguyen is working on a graphic novel chronicling his experiences during the ongoing pandemic. Nguyên lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, son, and terrier.
M. Jane Taylor earned a Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and was honored with the program’s Outstanding Graduate Award for fiction, and she is a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Regional Independent Artist Award and MSAC Grants for Artists Award. She lives in Baltimore with her wife, Autumn, and their children, Angus and Maeve.