Brittney Frantece is a writer, artist, writing educator, and Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Washington. In her research, she explores Black literary and visual arts to examine the new ways of thinking, being, and knowledge productions Black imaginations offer. In her teaching, she encourages students to venture out of what they consider to be “rules” when they are creating their projects, written or otherwise. Her goal is to offer students a variety of creative and intellectual modes to express their thoughts. She teaches for UW's Expository Writing Program and has conducted workshops for The Northwest School and Henry Arts Gallery. Her writing has appeared in Variable West, Black Embodiments Studios Journals, Hawai‘i Review chapbooks, and various art writing collections. She had curated shows for The Jacob Lawrence Gallery in Seattle and The Beans Gallery in Chicago. website: brittneyfrantece.com
Rasheena Fountain is an essayist and poet from Chicago's west side communities Austin and K-Town. She has been published or is forthcoming in Hobart, Penumbra Online, Jelly Bucket, The Roadrunner Review, Crazyhorse, You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, and more. Fountain received a 2021 Honorable Mention from the Trillium Arts “Miss Sarah” Fellowship for Black Women Writers. She has BA in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a MA.Ed. In Urban Environmental Education from Antioch University Seattle. Fountain has a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington Seattle, where she is currently a Ph.D. student in English literature and culture. She is working on a multi-genre memoir about nature, environmental justice, decolonization, land, and Blackness.Website: rasheenafountain.com
