Michelle R. Smith is a writer, poet, educator, cultural facilitator, and native Clevelander. She is the 2025-2027 Heights Poet Laureate, Programming Director for Literary Cleveland, and author of the poetry collections Ariel in Black (2015) and The Vagina Analogues (2020). Her work…
Barbara Marie Minney, a native of West Virginia and a seventh generation Appalachian, is a Christian transgender woman, award winning poet, speaker, teaching artist, guest reader/editor, and quiet activist. Her poetry and essays have been widely published and translated into Spanish. Barbara…
Eugenia crafts various styles of wire rings with silver, gold, and rose gold coatings, including rings with natural stones and crystals. Designs are inspired by seasonal expressions and popular settings. In her spare time she is an avid watercolor painter, bicyclist, and…
Chuck Joy, poet. Based in Erie PA. Writes fun poetry, one line at a time. Poet host, Poetry Night, Calamari’s, Erie PA, weekly poetry event. Finalist, Erie County (Pennsylvania) Poet Laureate Search. Featured poet: Mac’s Backs, Mahall’s 20 Lanes, Cornelia Street Cafe,…
Melissa Hintz, a Shaker Heights resident, escaped from corporate America to become a writer, her left brain exhausted from years as a number-crunching actuary and her right brain impatient to let her imagination run wild again. Her first book, On Chagrin Boulevard;…
Kisha Nicole Foster lives in Cleveland, and is the recipient of the 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize for Emerging Artist in Literature. Foster is an alumnus of Cleveland State University-BA English, and holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Foster…
Calil “JUST C.O.S.” Cage is a spoken word artist, author, and speaker. As the founder, he currently serves as the Executive Director of The Sparrow’s Fortune, a community oriented literary arts organization, and the host of Poetry Unplugged, an open mic platform.…
