Speakers
Lady Brion
Keynote Speaker
Lady Brion is an international spoken word artist, poetry coach, activist, organizer, educator, and the executive director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District. During her slam career she has won the 2016 National Poetry Slam, the 2017/2019 Southern Fried Regional Slam, and the 2019 Rustbelt Regional Slam. Most recently she became the Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion and International Poetry Slam Champion (team slam) in April 2021.
Kristen Arnett
Keynote Speaker
Kristen Arnett is the queer Floridian author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the New York Times bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She was awarded a Shearing Fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, has held residencies at Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, and the Studios of Key West, and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.
Temim Fruchter
Keynote Speaker
Temim Fruchter is a queer nonbinary anti-Zionist Jewish writer who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, and is the recipient of fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, and a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. She is co-host of Pete’s Reading Series in Brooklyn. Her debut novel, CITY OF LAUGHTER, a New York Times Editors’ Pick, is out now on Grove Atlantic.
Roseanne A. Brown
Keynote Speaker and
Maryland Author Award Winner
Roseanne A. Brown is an immigrant from the West African nation of Ghana and a graduate of the University of Maryland, where she completed the Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her debut novel A Song of Wraiths and Ruin was an instant New York Times Bestseller, an Indie Bestseller, and received six starred reviews. She has worked with Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney among other publishers.