22 JAN 2024 · Arisa White is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College. She is the author of Who’s Your Daddy, co-editor of Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart, and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice Series for young readers. Her poetry is widely published and her collections have been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, Lambda Literary Award, and has won the Per Diem Poetry Prize, Maine Literary Award, Nautilus Book Award, and an Independent Publisher Book Award. As the creator of the Beautiful Things Project, Arisa curates poetic collaborations that are rooted in Black queer women’s ways of knowing. She is a Cave Canem fellow and serves on the board of directors for Foglifter and Nomadic Press, as well as the Community Advisory Board for Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Arisa is currently working on an Afro-speculative opera, set between the material and spiritual worlds, where three females’ lives intersect because of a murder-suicide. Post Pardon: The Opera, in development with composer Jessica Jones, is a transgenerational apology.
Signature MiMi (she/siya/they) is a poetic being, creative expressionista and nomadic sorcerer. Born in the Philippines and raised in the US, MiMi writes and draws upon her experiences being a multi-ethnic child of the AAPI diaspora. Siya creates with words, sounds, visuals, space, earth, and technology to share stories of survival, decolonization, alignment and balance. An energetic explorer ready for their next adventure, MiMi regularly hosts and co-creates gatherings that invite participants to reflect and to express themselves authentically. One half of the eclectic duo https://www.signaturesoul.love/, MiMi and partner Marco Soulo are dedicated to raising the collective consciousness one soul at a time through the power of creative expression and the art of collaboration. Currently cultivating creative juices and justice in the northeast, MiMi uses her voice and gifts to empower others, especially youth.