#ObsidianVoices

Aurielle Marie is a Black, Atlanta-born, Queer poet, essayist, and social strategist. She was selected by Fatimah Asghar as the 2019 winner of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, the 2019 winner of the Los Angeles Review Poetry Award, and the 2019 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer’s Retreat Writer in Residence. Aurielle is the winner of the 2020 Cave Canem poetry prize

Jennifer Bartell received her MFA in Poetry from the University of South Carolina. She was appoined Poet Laurete of the City of Columbia, and her debut book of poetry, Traveling Mercy, will be released in November 2023 (Finishing Line Press). 

Moderator

L. Renée is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and a Pushcart Prize. She is the recipient of the international 2022 Rattle Poetry Prize, Indiana University Guy Lemmon Award in Public Writing, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Alumni Award, Appalachian Review’s Denny C. Plattner Award, 2021 Rattle Poetry Prize finalist, and second place for PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and New Limestone Review’s Crystal Wilkinson Creative Writing Prize. She is Assistant Director of Furious Flower Poetry Center and Assistant Professor of English at James Madison University.