Artist Bios
Poet, visual artist, educator, and arts advocate, Imani Tolliver is a graduate of Howard University where she studied English Literature and African-American Studies. During her studies, she was awarded a Lannon Literary Fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, the John J. Wright Literary Award and is a graduate fellow of Cave Canem African-American Writer’s Workshop and Retreat. She has served as a consultant to community organizations, museums and educators. She has been a featured poet across the country, including the Nuyorican Poet’s Café, the Smithsonian Institution, Beyond Baroque, the World Stage Performance Gallery, the Autry National Center, and the Los Angeles Central Library. Her work has been published in several anthologies and journals, including “Cave Canem” II, IV, and V, “Jones Juke Joint Magic,” “The Flow: New Black Poetry in Motion,” “Ghettoes are not Beautiful,” “Black Love,” “The Drumming Between Us – A Poetry Journal,” “Drum Voices Review,” “Step Into A World- A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature,” “Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam,” “Beyond the Frontier,” “Beyond the Valley of the Contemporary Poets,” and the forthcoming, “Poetry is not a Luxury: LA Women of Color and Voices from Leimert Park.”
Brendan Constantine’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Artlife, The Cider Press Review, Directions, StellaZine and Ploughshares. He has numerous chapbooks, including “Dante’s Casino,” which was Pushcart nominated. A nominee for Poet Laureate of California in 2002 as well as a member of PEN WEST, Brendan teaches poetry to High School students throughout Los Angeles, and runs a popular adult workshop called Industrial Poetry. His first formal collection of poems “Hyenas 57” was finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2003. He is currently finishing his MFA in Creative Writing at Vermont College.
Marie Lecrivain is the executive editor of “poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles." She's a 2nd-level denizen of Dante's Inferno, and is a writer in residence at her apartment. Her prose and poetry have appeared in “Earth's Daughters,” “The Homestead Review,” “Matrix,” “Subtle Tea,” “Triplopia,” and in the anthology “Literary Angles: the second year of ‘poeticdiversity’” (Sybaritic Press 2005). She is the author of two poetry collections: “Canticle of a Bored Hausfrau” (Sybaritic Press 2003), and “poetry whored,” an e-chapbook (Tamafyhr Mountain Press 2004). Marie's avocations include photography, Sean Bean, her cat Beeb, expensive handbags, and sensual tributes upon her neck from male artists—except male poets, who only write about it.
Wendy C. Ortiz is a writer and creative writing teacher of Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in “Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art,” “Eclipse,” “Cranky,” “KNOCK,” the online zine “Experimental Candy,” “Calapooya,” “EM Literary Asylum,” “poetrymagazine.com,” and “4th Street.” She has been a journalist, mudwrestler, longtime library worker, and editor and publisher of a handbound literary journal. In 2002, Wendy earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. She currently co-curates the two-year-old Rhapsodomancy reading series at the Good Luck Bar in Hollywood with poet Andrea Quaid. Wendy lives in Koreatown and is at work on a book of personal essays.