Clint Smith is the number one New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, winner of the NBCC Award for Nonfiction, Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, Stowe Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His two poetry books, Above Ground and Counting Descent, won the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and were finalists for NAACP Image Awards. A staff writer at The Atlantic, he has held numerous fellowships, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The NYT Magazine, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and others. He is a former National Poetry Slam champion and recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize.

Mark McBride is a director at Ithaka S+R, where he leads strategic portfolios that address critical challenges in higher education and cultural heritage. His work includes research into collections and infrastructure dynamics within libraries and cultural organizations, initiatives addressing basic student needs, and investigations into organizational structures and open education frameworks. He leads a team of researchers and analysts who investigate how institutions can optimize their organizational strategies and service delivery models. His collaborative approach helps institutions develop innovative solutions that enhance their impact and sustainability.
Photo credit: Ithaka S+R

Duriel E. Harris, a poet, performer, and sound artist, is the author No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat, 2017), Drag (2003), and Amnesiac (2010). Multigenre works include Thingification and Speleology. Cofounder of the Black Took Collective, she has been a MacDowell and Millay fellow and received grants from the IAC, Cave Canem, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Her work is in BAX, Mandorla, The &Now Awards, Of Poetry & Protest, Ploughshares, Troubling the Line, and The Best of Fence. Harris holds literature degrees from Yale and NYU and a PhD from the UIC Program for Writers. Awarded the George Garrett Award at #AWP23, she is a professor of English at Illinois State and editor of Obsidian.

Lisa Willis is an artistic administrator and creative space maker with over twenty years of experience managing multidisciplinary projects in the nonprofit and commercial arts sectors. She has held various roles for New York Live Arts, Contemporaneous, Thresh, and others. In 2020 she cofounded the LynList, a listserv and grant writing support service for NYC artists and nonprofits. She is engaged in expanding the research needed to inform cultural and social progress, including serving as co-principal investigator on the “Magnitude and Bond: A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Service Organizations.” She was the founding operations manager for CAMI Music and holds a BA in music composition and theory from NYU, with a background in ballet and modern dance.