As writers, celebrating culture through our work is as easy as sitting across the table from grandma. That ancestral influence is undeniable, but for some it is more intentional. It can be the circulatory process that streams through the work that is produced. Whether baptized in holy water or animal sacrifice – Christianity, Voodun, Santeria or Sanctified, these rituals imprint themselves in the work of the writer. The Spirits, Spirituality & Craft reading and panel discussion will bring together three writers whose work demonstrates how ancestral influence and spiritual practice manifests itself in their writing craft. We will discuss the intention behind this effort. Is it a memory purge? Or a necessary part of their work? How do they bring in or welcome these influences into their writing space?

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Bios

FAYLITA HICKS (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx writer, spoken word artist, and cultural strategist. A prolific creative and previously incarcerated artist, Hicks’ is known for their dynamic storytelling methods and compelling narrative arcs. Using poetry, prose, music, video, and live performances—they explore the evolution of personal and national identity, the cyclical nature of grief, the spiritual applications of quantum physics, decolonized eroticism/sensuality, and manifesting personal liberation. Hicks is an Artivist: someone who integrates transformative justice theory into their creative practice, using much of their work to advocate for the lives of marginalized people who make up our global majority. Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary 45 Days in a Texas Jail, and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem. Based in Chicago, IL, Hicks is the author of the critically-acclaimed debut poetry collection HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019).

TINA JENKINS BELL is a fiction writer, playwright, freelance journalist, literary activist, and academic. Bell is a three-time recipient of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events grant, an Illinois Arts Council grant and two fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation. She is a co-founder of FLOW (For the Love of Writing) and has collaborated with numerous writing organizations, authors, and bookstores to offer literary programming on Chicago’s south side. She has collaborated with Janice Tuck Lively and Sandra Jackson-Opoku to produce “A Conversation with Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks,” a fictitious account of the literary icons discussing race and women’s issues during a chance meeting in heaven. Her prose has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Hypertext Journal, ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine, and Us Against Alzheimer’s.

KELI STEWART is a writer and educator whose writing has appeared in Quiddity, Meridians, Warpland, amongst other notable journals and publications. Keli was recently selected as a 2021-2022 School of the Art Institute Nichols Tower Artist-in-Residence, where she will facilitate community storytelling and creative writing workshops. She has received artist fellowships from Hedgebrook, where she was awarded the 2010 Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Award, and the Augusta Savage Gallery Arts International Residency Program. An alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Callaloo Summer Writing Workshops, Keli’s writing was selected first place in the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois Center of the Book, chosen by Illinois poet laureate Kevin Stein. A graduate of Providence St. Mel Highschool, she received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College in 2002, her MFA in Poetry from Chicago State University, and pursued doctoral work in Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she studied with notable artists, activists, and scholars. Keli served as a Leadership Lab Fellow with the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation. She is also the founder of Front Porch Arts Center, selected as part of the Alliance of Artists Communities Emerging Program Institute. Her poetry collection, Small Altars was published with Bronzeville Books in 2021.

ANDREA CHANGE (she/her) is a hometown girl, born and raised in Chicago. A graduate of Northwestern University with a Master’s degree from Roosevelt, she has been an active member of Chicago’s literary community for than 20 years. Her work has been published in the past in various journals and poetry anthologies from Tia Chucha Press, Powerlines and Stray Bullets. Her poetry was also included in the Steppenwolf Theatre production, Words on Fire. She is currently working on a book of memoir poetry and prose inspired by her experiences growing up on the city’s west side. Andrea is the executive director for the Guild Literary Complex and currently lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood with her two dogs Sasha and Missy.

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Tags: Andrea Change, Arts + Public Life, Chicago, Faylita Hicks, Green Line Performing Arts Center, Keli Stewart, Spirits Spirituality & Craft, Tina Jenkins Bell, Washington Park