Noel Black (he/him) is poet, publisher, translator, and radio producer who was born in Tucson and grew up in Colorado Springs. He is the author of three full-length collections: Uselysses (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012), La Goon (Furniture Press Books, 2014), and The Natural Football League (The New Heave-Ho, 2016). Black translated Puerto Rican poet Mara Pastor’s Llámame Láctea/Children of Another Hour (Argos Books, 2014). Pastor and Guillermo Rebollo-Gil translated Black’s long poem Prophecies for the Past/Profécias Para El Pasado (2.0.1.3. Editorial, 2015). With Julien Poirier, he is coeditor of Kevin Opstedal’s Pacific Standard Time (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016). His other chapbooks include: Lunch Poem, This is the Strange Part, Night Falls/Under Days, November to June, Vacancy, Shoplifter’s Honor, InnerVisions, and In The City of Word People. His most recent chapbook is High Noon (Blue Press Books, 2018).

Black was the coeditor of Log Magazine with Ed Berrigan in the late 1990s, and from 1998 to 2004 he ran Angry Dog Press and published the Angry Dog Midget Editions. From 2004–2006, he published and edited The Toilet Paper, a satirical monthly newspaper in Colorado Springs. After dropping out of the MA in Poetics program at the now-defunct New College of California in 1998, he will earn an MFA in poetics and creative non-fiction from the Mile-High MFA Program at Regis University in summer 2018. He lives in Manitou Springs, Colorado with his family.

Megan Gafford (she/her) received her MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016, and her BA from the University of New Orleans in 2011. Her installations are made from materials most often associated with science, such as cybernetics and particle detectors, which Gafford uses to create environments where people may wonder at how the world works. Gafford’s work has been exhibited at galleries and museums nationally, including David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Backyard Ballroom in New Orleans. She is currently an artist-in-residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver. For more information about Gafford’s work, visit www.megangafford.com.

Rick Griffith (he/him) is a British-born graphic designer of West-Indian origin, and the Design Director of the communication design studio MATTER in Denver, Colorado. His free graphic works are often nested in a writing practice and often produced on 19th and early 20th-century printing presses with a combination of traditional and avant-garde techniques. He is a scholar of typographic history and frequently lectures throughout North America and internationally on design history, typography, and his unique model of professional practice. He is a DJ and has been collecting (and playing) music for over 30 years.

Katherine Guinness (she/her) is a theorist and historian of contemporary art. She is Assistant Professor and Director of Art History in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her first book, Rosemarie Trockel: Schizogenesis, is forthcoming in Fall 2019 from the University of Minnesota Press.

Molina Speaks (he/him) is an artist, musician, writer, poet, and filmmaker, a cultural futurist, living word architect, and human bridge.  His first film, ROOT, is an independent venture that premiered in his home city of Denver, Colorado on March 31st, 2018.  ROOT then captured the Premio Ometeotl Award for New Media at its film festival debut at Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center XicanIndie Film Fest. In addition to his own music, poetry and film work, Molina performs regularly with Chicano Afrobeat orchestra Pink Hawks and punk/hip-hop act Roots Rice and Beans (Best of Denver 2018 Best New Band). Molina was named 2017 Mastermind by Westword Magazine, and was voted top Solo Rap Artist in Westword’s 2018 Music Awards.

Offstage, Molina is a community-focused educator. He teaches cultural and media studies courses at the university level and works with young people at all age levels to develop their imaginations, creativity, and sense of wonder about their existence. Most notably, Molina coordinates Youth On Record’s Fellowship program for 18-23 year-old emerging artists. The Fellowship program was recently recognized with a Westword Best of Denver 2018 award for Best Place to Find the Future of the Music Business. This program is also the recipient of a 2018-19 Arts in Society Award, for its role in addressing race and class inequities in the creative industries.

Sheree “lovemestiza” Brown (she/her) is a writer, poet, AfroMestizaFuturist, deep creative, educator, and mother. She dances with the cosmos and writes the futures of her people in her spare time. A great deal of her writing is a blend between poetry and prose, and an amalgamation of experience and dreams. Sheree is a writing instructor with Lighthouse Writers, and she is the founder of Ancestral Herbalism—a community collective of dozens of kitchen herbalists, holistic health practitioners and healers of many traditions. Sheree has featured at Lighthouse Writer’s Annual Literary Festival, Cafe Cultura, Queenz of Hip-Hop, The Renaissance Poetry Night at the Kasbah, and has taught and led workshops at dozens of school and community events through Lighthouse Writers and other arts and literary organizations.

Sheree’s first book is titled lovemestiza, and is an ode to her mixed ancestry. A self-described “Woman of many colors,” she reflects on her journey as a Black woman and Chicana with mixed “Mestiza” and Indigenous roots. Her four-part book also traces her experiences becoming a mother, and healing from intergenerational, personal, and social traumas. In addition to poetry and prose, lovemestiza contains polaroids, quotes, and original plant-based medicinal recipes crafted by la “lovemestiza” herself. LoveMestiza is love work. What does your love work look like?

Meagan Estep (she/her) is a museum educator who believes deeply in the power of online tools to create conversation. Meagan leads social media initiatives at the National Gallery of Art, where she creates participatory experiences using a variety of platforms. Previously, Meagan managed K-12 digital and educator initiatives at The Phillips Collection, designed interdisciplinary teacher resources at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and coordinated youth & family programs at both the Corcoran and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She received her MAT in art education from the Corcoran College of Art + Design, Washington, DC, and a BA in art history from the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA.

Sarah Wambold (she/her) is the executive producer and content strategist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she leads a team of editors and producers who create interpretive media, including videos, articles, essays, and podcasts. With more than 18 years in the arts and culture sector, she has also worked for the Clyfford Still Museum and the MCA Chicago, and is the co-founder of Denver-based non-profit Tilt West, an organization whose mission is to promote critical discourse on arts and culture in Denver.

Matt Popke (he/him) is a software developer and designer who has been at the Denver Art Museum since 2011. Trained in computer science, he somehow became a web designer in the 90s, and he has been trying to figure out why any of this is happening ever since.

Theresa Anderson (she/her b. 1967, St. Paul, MN) lives and works in Denver, CO. Developing interdisciplinary work through performance art, sculpture, drawing and painting, she explores concepts dealing with conflict, and/ or, oppositional categories, and recitations on agency and inadequacy. She is alum of artist residencies at Redline Denver, PlatteForum, and Vermont Studio Center where she received fellowship funding for her sculpture. Anderson has received multiple commissions and stipends through organizations such as the Biennial of the Americas, Black Cube Nomadic Museum with the curator Cortney Lane Stell, as well as the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the presentation of a master artist demonstration on drawing at the Denver Art Museum. Recent solo and notable exhibitions include everything squiggles at 808 Projects, curated by Mardee Goff, every length of a drawing at Yeah Maybe, Minneapolis curated by Nicole Soukup, Performativity at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, curated by Michol Hebron, Thief Among Thieves at Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Adam Lerner and Nora Abrams and some kind of cuddle at Gray Contemporary, Houston, where she is represented.