Calling all spoken word and slam poets! We’re looking for passionate poets and prose writers to support our in-school writer residencies and afterschool programs.
Ariel Aberg-Riger
Visual Artist, Writer
Ariel Aberg-Riger is a self-taught artist who is focused on using the power of visual storytelling to explore issues of equity and social justice, encouraging readers to think differently about history, science, policy, and the other forces that shape our lives. Her first book American Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History won the 2023 Kirkus Prize. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and The Atlantic’s CityLab among other publications. She is a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Nonfiction Literature, and a member of the Tin House 2020 Summer Workshop. Ariel lives in sunny Buffalo, NY with her wife and two kids.
Karima Amin
Author, Storyteller, Educator
Karima Amin preserves the art of storytelling in performances, workshops, and author visits for story lovers of all ages. She is the author of a children’s book, The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Friends (Dorling Kindersley, 1999), as well as several original stories which have been anthologized in African American Children’s Stories: A Treasury of Tradition and Pride (2001) and Grandma Loves You (2003). Her CD, You Can Say That Again! (2004), earned a Parents’ Choice Foundation Gold Award in 2005.
Daughters of Creative Sound (Facebook Group)
Tradition Keepers: Black Storytellers of Western New York (Facebook Group)
D. Arthur
Fiction Writer, Humorist
D. Arthur (she/they) is a fiction writer, essayist, and events producer from Buffalo, New York. Their work can be found in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Electric Literature, Foglifter, and elsewhere. D currently lives in Buffalo where she is at work on her first novel.
Joel Brenden
Photographer, Author, Editor
Joel Brenden is an artist and educator working within a broad range of disciplines including photography and bookmaking. A native of Washington State, he received his MFA in Visual Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2008. His recent exhibitions include Beyond/In Western New York: Alternating Currents at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.
Gabriel Bump
Novelist
Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and has won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Fiction, the Heartland Booksellers Award for Fiction, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award. Bump is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Marquis “Ten Thousand” Burton
Spoken Word Poet
Marquis “Ten Thousand” Burton is a spoken word poet, educator and curator. Working with Shea’s Performing Arts, C.A.O.(Community Action Organization), Say Yes Buffalo and other non-profit and educational institutions he has taught young writers to discover their voice through poetry while celebrating their stories for more than a decade. He has represented Buffalo in National Poetry Slams for the past decade and has been the official team coach for two years. Marquis has also held the position of curator of poetry talent for the Music Is Art Festival for the past 6 years.
Benjamin Brindise
Spoken Word Poet, Fiction Writer
Benjamin Brindise is the author of the chapbook ROTTEN KID (Ghost City Press, 2017), the full length collection of poetry Those Who Favor Fire, Those Who Pray to Fire (EMP Books, 2018), and the short fiction micro chap The Procession (Ghost City Press, 2018). He has represented Buffalo, NY in the National Poetry Slam in 2015, 2016, and 2018, helping Buffalo to place as high as 9th in the country. His poetry and fiction has been published widely online and in print including Maudlin House, Trailer Park Quarterly, and Philosophical Idiot.
Richard Chiem
Novelist, Fiction Writer
is the author of You Private Person (Sorry House Classics, 2017), and the novel King of Joy (Soft Skull, 2019), which was long listed for the 2020 PEN Open Book Award. He was named a 2019 Writer to Watch by The Los Angeles Times. He has taught at Hugo House and Catapult. He lives in Seattle.
Luke Daly
Poet, Writer
Luke Daly writes and lives in Buffalo, NY, where Lake Erie ends and the Niagara River begins. His work can be found in Subtropics, Basalt, Poetry City USA, and Ghost City Review. He teaches full time as a senior lecturer in Rochester Institute of Technology’s University Writing Program.
Alexis David
Fiction Writer, Poet, Illustrator
Alexis David is a fiction writer, poet, and illustrator. She has published the chapbook The Names of Animals I Have Loved (Dancing Girl Press, 2019). She holds an MFA in fiction from New England College and a MA in education from Canisius College.
Aitina Fareed-Cooke
Photographer, Recording Artist, Spoken Word Poet
Aitina is an award-winning photographer recognized by 43 North/Ignite Buffalo (Ignite Buffalo’s People’s Choice Award 2018), CEPA Gallery-Exhibition Award 2017, Buffalo News (2017), the National Society of Leadership & Success-Excellence in Teaching Award 2013, who has also been featured in Buffalo Healthy Living Magazine (2018), Upstart New York (2018), Challenger Newspaper (2018), National Young Audiences Emerging Leaders for 2015 and Entrepreneurship in the Arts (2013). Aitina’s original work has been featured in CEPA Gallery, Jamestown Community College, and the Blue Plate Studio. Adding to her extensive resume, she has served as a “Say Yes” Community Schools Navigator, Young Audiences WNY Education Coordinator, CEPA Gallery Teaching Artist, Youth Services Site Coordinator with the CAO N.U.R.T.U.R.E. Academy, Mentor with the Heart Foundation and Gateway Longview, and much more.
Cornelius Fitzpatrick
Fiction Writer
Cornelius FitzPatrick is a fiction writer and teacher living in Brooklyn, NY. He has received a Fiction Fellowship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and an Emerging Writers Fellowship from A Public Space. His work has appeared in A Public Space. He is working on a collection of stories and a novel.
Joe Hall
Poet
Joe Hall is an educator and the author of several collections of poems, including Pigafetta Is My Wife, The Devotional Poems, and Someone’s Utopia (Black Ocean). With Chad Hardy, he wrote the book The Container Store Vols. I & II (SpringGun Press). With Cheryl Quimba, he wrote the chapbook May I Softly Walk. The Boston Globe says his fourth collection of poems, Fugue & Strike (Black Ocean, 2023) “…Hums and hollers with filth and eros, with the wasting heap of capitalism.” He participates in Hostile Books, a publishing collective dedicated to radical materiality, with Ryan Kaveh Sheldon and Angela Veronica Wong, He lives in Buffalo, NY.
Susan Hodge Anner
Poet, Playwright, Essayist
Susan Hodge Anner is a poet, playwright, and essayist whose work has been performed both locally and in New York, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C. She taught Theatre at the University of Buffalo for 22 years and is now an Artist-in-Residence at Oishei Children’s Hospital where she promotes patient wellness through creative engagement with the arts.
Catherine Linder Spencer
Artist, Art Educator
Catherine Linder Spencer is an award-winning, self-taught photographer who lets her instincts guide her lens. The subject matter in her work is often the evidence of other people’s efforts, quiet but powerful details, pieces of overlooked history. She is an active, vocal volunteer for several local arts and community organizations and passionately advocates for the arts and artists around her. When she’s not behind a camera, Catherine is working on artist residencies with students in Western New York. Catherine is represented by Edith Graves Art Advisor, a Washington, D.C.-based virtual gallery created to connect art lovers with art makers.
Jessica Lowell Mason
Scholar, Writer
Jessica Lowell Mason is a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the Global Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at the University at Buffalo. A writer, educator, and performer, Jessica has worked for Shakespeare in Delaware Park, Ujima Theatre Co., Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Jewish Repertory Theatre, and Prometheus Books. She has taught writing courses at Buffalo State College, Carl Sandburg College, Spoon River College, and Western Illinois University. Her first chapbook, Woman in Disguise, was published by Saltfire Press in 2013. Her first full-length book of poetry, Straight Jacket, was published in 2019 by Finishing Line Press. She is the co-founder of Madwomen in the Attic, a feminist mental health literacy organization in Buffalo, NY.
Laura Marris
Writer, Translator
Laura Marris is a writer and translator. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Yale Review, The Volta, The Common, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and a Daniel Varoujan Award. Recent translations include Albert Camus’s The Plague, Geraldine Schwarz’s Those Who Forget, and Louis Guilloux’s Blood Dark, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University at Buffalo, and she is currently at work with Alice Kaplan on a book of essays called States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic.
Phil McAndrew
Illustrator, Cartoonist, Writer
Phil McAndrew is an award-winning illustrator, a cartoonist, and a writer. He has contributed comics and humor to The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, Popular, AWRY, The Nib, and many other publications. Phil is the author and illustrator of CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES (Uncivilized Books, 2013). He also illustrated the CAVEBOY DAVE series of graphic novels written by Aaron Reynolds (Viking Books, 2016 and 2018), MONSTER SCIENCE by Helaine Becker (Kids Can Press, 2016), and YOUR MIND MAKES THOUGHTS LIKE YOUR BUTT MAKES FARTS by Todd Strauss-Schulson (Wisdom Publications, 2023). Phil lives in the Buffalo, NY area and has taught as an adjunct instructor with the illustration program at Syracuse University. He enjoys digging around in his garden and playing drums in bands with his friends.
Amanda Montei
Author, Poet, Editor
Amanda Montei is the author of TOUCHED OUT: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, & Control, available now from Beacon Press, as well as the memoir Two Memoirs (Jaded Ibis Press) and a collection of prose, The Failure Age (Bloof Books). Her work has been featured at The New York Times, The Guardian, ELLE, TIME, The Cut, Mother Tongue, Slate, Electric Literature, Vox, Rumpus, Salon, The Believer, Ms. Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and in numerous literary journals. She was a 2020 Best American Essays notable.
Katie Naughton
Poet, Editor, Essayist
Katie Naughton is the author of the chapbook Study (Above/Ground Press, 2021). Her poetry has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Jubilat, poets.org, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She is at work on two collections of poems: Hour Song (which was a finalist for the 2021 Nightboat Poetry Prize under the title the real ethereal) and Debt Ritual. Katie is the publicity editor for Essay Press, editor and project manager at the HOW(ever) and How2 Archive, and founder of Etcetera, a web journal of reading recommendations from poets. She is a doctoral candidate in the Poetics program at SUNY at Buffalo and holds an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University.
Julianne Neely
Poet
Julianne Neely received her MFA degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she received the Truman Capote Fellowship, the 2017 John Logan Poetry Prize, and a Schupes Fellowship for Poetry. She is currently a Poetics PhD candidate and an English Department Fellow at the University at Buffalo. She is the author of the chapbook The Body Beside Herself (Slope Editions, 2018). Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, VIDA, The Rumpus, The Iowa Review, and more.
Jessica Pavia
Creative Non-Fiction Writer
Jessica L. Pavia is a creative nonfiction writer and Write or Die Tribe columnist based in Rochester, NY. Her work has appeared in Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Columbia Journal, Breadcrumbs Mag, and The Sheepshead Review. She holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.
Bella Poynton
Playwright
Bella Poynton was the 2013/2014 Ginsberg Artist in Residence for the Iowa City School District, and is currently the Playwright in Residence at The Dark Lady Players. She has taught at The Springville Arts Center, Road Less Traveled Productions, The Horizon Theater Company, and The University of Iowa. Bella holds a BFA in Acting from Boston University, and an MFA in Playwriting from The Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop. Her full-length plays include Speed Of Light, The Aurora Project, Medusa Undone, Fat Girls In Space, and Pope Joan, plus numerous other plays, one-acts, and scenes.
Cheryl Quimba
Poet
Cheryl Quimba received an MFA in poetry from Purdue University.Her poems have appeared in Dusie, Phoebe, Tinfish, Everyday Genius, 1913, and Horseless Review. She is the author of the poetry collection Nobody Dancing (Publishing Genius) and the chapbook Scattered Trees Grow in Some Tundra (Sunnyoutside Press). With Joe Hall, she co-authored the digital chapbook May I Softly Walk: The Santa Fe Journals (Poetry Crush).
Jake Reber
Poet
Jake Reber is a writer, artist, and educator living in Buffalo, NY. He is the co-curator of Hysterically Real and an editor for Recreational Resources. He has published several artist books and experimental projects, including Invasive Species (Void Front Press, 2019), Bureaucratic Topologies (Gauss-PDF, 2018), and Lobster Genesis (Orworse Press, 2016), among others.
Sherry Robbins
Poet
Sherry Robbins has conducted creative writing workshops throughout New York State and abroad for more than 30 years and works with hundreds of students each year. She has a Masters in the poetics of ecstasy and three books of poetry, Under World, Snapshots of Paradise and Or, the Whale. Sherry ran her own letterpress for years, is a certified yoga teacher, and a multi-year panelist for the NEA’s Art Works program.
Gary Earl Ross
Author, Poet, Playwright
Gary Earl Ross is a retired UB/EOC language arts professor. His works include the short story collections The Wheel of Desire (2000) and Shimmerville (2002); the children’s tale Dots (2002); the historical novel Blackbird Rising (2009); and the stage plays Sleepwalker (2002), Picture Perfect (2007), The Best Woman (2007), Murder Squared (2010), The Scavenger’s Daughter (2012), The Mark of Cain (2014), The Guns of Christmas (2014), and Matter of Intent, which was the winner of the 2006 Edgar Allan Poe Award from Mystery Writers of America.
Aidan Ryan
Writer, Poet, Publisher
Aidan Ryan is a writer based in Buffalo. His poetry and fiction have appeared in Slipstream, Xavier Review, Peach Mag, and Best New Poets 2019, and his essays and interviews have appeared in The White Review, Rain Taxi, Traffic East, and CNN. He is the author of Organizing Isolation: Half-Lives of Love at Long Distance (Linoleum Press, 2017), a collection of cut-up poetry. Aidan is a cofounder of Foundlings Press and currently serves as publisher.
Margaret Saigh
Poet
Margaret Saigh is the author of the chapbook I’ve created a thing that will never bring me pleasure (Pitymilk Press, 2025) as well as two other chapbooks. She is the creator of circlet, a poetry workshop and reading series. Her writing has been published widely in print and across the web. She received an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Travis Sharp
Essayist, Scholar, Poet
Travis Sharp is a teacher, writer, and book artist living in Buffalo and is the executive editor and director of Essay Press. He is the author of Yes, I am a corpse flower (Knife Fork Books, 2021). He co-edited Radio: 11.8.16 (Essay Press, 2017) with Aimee Harrison and Maria Anderson, and is the author of the chapbooks Sinister Queer Agenda (above/ground press, 2018) and one plus one is two ones (Recreational Resources, 2018). He’s a PhD candidate in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo.
J.B. Stone
Writer, Spoken Word Poet
J.B. Stone is a Neurodivergent/Autistic spoken word poet, writer, critic from Brooklyn, NY now residing in Buffalo, NY. They serve as EIC/Reviews Editor at Variety Pack and reads flash fiction for Split Lip Magazine and short fiction for Uncharted Magazine. He’s the author of three chapbooks including Fireflies And Hand Grenades (Bottlecap Press 2022). J.B. was recently shortlisted for CRAFT’s Inaugural Character Sketch Challenge, and his prose has been nominated for the Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions Award Anthologies. Their work has appeared in over 65 publications including Flash Fiction Magazine, Flashback Fiction, Star*Line, Flashflood Journal, BULL, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, Chicago Review of Books, and The Citron Review, among other spaces. He is currently working on a couple of theater projects with American Repertory Theater of Western NY. Along with their textual work, he has competed, won, and/or placed in Poetry Slams across the U.S. and Canada, from Toronto, Ontario to Knoxville, Tennessee, and will be representing Pure Ink Poetry’s slam team at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam Festival, in Pompano Beach, FL, next year.
Mathias Svalina
Poet, Writer, Dream Deliverer
Mathias Svalina is the author of seven books and runs a dream delivery service. Thank You Terror, a poetry collection, will be published this winter by Big Lucks Books, and Comedy, a short story collection, will be published by Trident Books in 2024.
Rachelle Toarmino
Poet, Essayist, Editor
Rachelle Toarmino is a writer, editor, and educator from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the founding editor in chief of Peach Mag, and is the author of the poetry collection That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 6/9/2020) and the chapbooks Feel Royal (b l u s h, 2019) and Personal & Generic (PressBoardPress, 2016). Her writing has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Shabby Doll House, and other places online and in print, and has been anthologized in The Cosmonauts Avenue Anthology and My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry.
Julio Montalvo Valentín
Poet
Julio Montalvo Valentín (they/his) is the author of three chapbooks, the latest being Those Who Pray to Rice (NightBallet Press, 2019), and is a member of Los Artistas del Barrio Buffalo (LADB). Julio was a guest editor for Mutata Re, Portrait, Coffin Bell Journal, Variety Pack, and co-founder of the late Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective. Their work has been published in Thimble Literary Magazine, Cavity, Bangor Literary Journal, Aisthesis: The Interdisciplinary Honors Journal, and more. Their work has been anthologized in Boricua en la Luna: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Voices, A Flash of Dark, Mansion, My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry, and the Silkworm Anthology, Volume 13. While pausing on their next project for the season, a poetry caravan, you can find them working to finish their Master’s degree in English Literature.
Christina Vega-Westhoff
Poet, Translator
Christina Vega-Westhoff is a poet, translator, and aerialist. She is the author of Suelo Tide Cement, the winner of the 2017 Nightboat Prize for Poetry. Vega-Westhoff also works as a teaching artist with the Geneseo Migrant Center and Young Audiences of Western New York and as a movement instructor with The Bird’s Nest Circus Arts. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently BAX 2018: Best American Experimental Writing and Words Without Borders. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona and a BA in English and Latin American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She choreographs and performs interdisciplinary works independently and for festivals and theatre, dance, and circus companies.
Dana Venerable
Poet
Dana Venerable is a writer, educator, co-editor of P-QUEUE journal, and a UB English PhD candidate living in Buffalo, NY. Her research highlights how marginalized communities resist against the archive/record, while (re)inserting themselves within it. Dana has performed within artist collectives at UB Arts Collaboratory, PLAY/GROUND, and UB’s MFA Dance Concert. She has written for The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, P-QUEUE, VIDA Review, Snail Trail Press, and Zoomoozophone Review.
Neil Wechsler
Playwright
Neil Wechsler’s play Grenadine won the 2008 Yale Drama Award, selected by Edward Albee. Grenadine was published by Yale University Press and has been produced at Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo, SMU in Texas, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Neil’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean premiered at Torn Space Theater. It was the American premiere of Emperor and Galilean. Neil’s play The Brown Bull of Cuailnge received its world premiere in Toronto, presented by The Room. Neil has spoken about playwriting and literature at high schools and colleges across the country. Neil is the Executive Director of Against the Grain Theater Festival in Buffalo.
Max Weiss
Cartoonist, Songwriter
Max Weiss is a Buffalo Native Cartoonist and songwriter, and vocalist of the national touring act Welks Mice. After receiving a BA in English Literature and Art Education from the University of Vermont in 2012, Max returned to Buffalo where he self-published two graphic novels and released one LP on One Percent Press. Max works as an academic life coach for students with disabilities at the nonprofit organization Accessible Academics. His third title, Time For Lunch, is slated to be published by Secret Acres in 2022.
Brandon Williamson
Spoken Word Artist
Brandon Williamson was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. A proud Fredonia graduate, Brandon has made it his life goal to reach out to students in inner city neighborhoods similar to the one he grew up in, painting a path for them to follow to their future. In this process, Brandon spent time as a high school teacher before creating the Pure Ink Poetry Slam. As the only monthly running poetry slam in Buffalo, the Pure Ink Poetry Slam caters to the community of poets in the area, as well as authors, musicians, dancers, and comedians. As a product of the Ujima Theater company, Brandon works hard to build a community of art that everyone can be a part of. He has performed in a wide variety of musicals and plays since 2001, including Parade, The Green Pastures, Stickfly, And Bid Him Sing, Little Shop Of Horrors, The Scavenger’s Daughter, and more. He has also facilitated writing and performance workshops for organizations like Planned Parenthood, Teen Reality Theatre, Buffalo Public Schools, Summer School of the Arts, University at Buffalo, Buffalo State University, and more. He has performed, competed, and won poetry slams and been featured throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ontario, Michigan, Oregon, California, and most recently, Berlin and other parts of Europe. He is the author of Critical Lens, a presentation of the world through the critical eyes of a poet, and A How-to Guide. Brandon also has two spoken word and music albums—Instrumental and The Plot Twist—available on all streaming platforms.
Janna Willoughby-Lohr
Poet, Musician, Bookmaker
Janna Willoughby-Lohr has been writing poetry since she was 5 and performing since age 12. She holds a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Creative Business Arts from Warren Wilson College. A Grand Slam finalist in 2005–2008 for the Nickel City Poetry Slam and a member of the 2006 Nickel City Slam team at the National Poetry Slam, Janna is also an editor for Earth’s Daughters literary magazine, the longest running women’s publication in the country. She has been performing with her band The BloodThirsty Vegans since 2008. They are currently at work on their second studio album. She also runs her own business making handmade paper and books.
Become a Teaching Artist
Join Just Buffalo’s teaching artists in representing the best of Western New York’s literary presence, from poetry and fiction to playwriting, non-fiction and beyond.
All disciplines are welcome to apply—even visual art, photography, performance art, filmmaking, and others. But we’re especially excited to hear from spoken word and slam poets. If this sounds like you, apply today!