Our Team

Christiana Castillo is an educator, activist, urban gardener and writer. She holds an undergraduate degree from Wayne State University where she obtained an English major with a co-major in peace and conflict studies and resolution. Christiana serves as a board member for the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights. She recently finished writing a bilingual children’s book titled A Town Called Hope, which focuses on community and environmental justice. Most of her teachings focus on social justice and peace and conflict resolution. In her free time she enjoys making collages, doodling and reading. She loves her cats and all things sunflowers.

Franny Choi is the author of the collection Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). She has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Kundiman, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, the Poetry Review, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan, a Project VOICE teaching artist, and a member of the Dark Noise Collective.

Bayan Founas is an educator and artist currently studying at the University of Michigan to receive a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy. She founded and directs a high-school poetry club at Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, where she taught for two years, to give Detroit youth a safe space to creatively heal and be themselves fully without conforming to institutional norms. In August 2018, she published her first book, Diary of a Daughter in Diaspora – a collection of her poems giving readers the narrative of a first-generation Algerian and Muslim woman growing up in a post 9/11-Trump America.

Mahogany Jones is a lyrical force, hailed internationally for her work, as a recording and performance artist, arts educator, community activist, United Way Brand Ambassador, and US musical ambassador who’s served 18 countries to date.

Recently awarded as 2018’s Detroit Music Award’s Outstanding Rap MC, she is a former Kresge Arts Fellow, and most noted as 4x undefeated BET’s 106&Park Freestyle Friday Battle Champion.

Her latest album is “SugarWater.” Jones is slated for an EP release with trumpeter and composer Kris Johnson in the winter of 2019.

John Rybicki was born and raised in Detroit. He is the author of the poetry collections, We Bed Down Into Water, When All the World is Old, Traveling at High Speeds, and When All the World is Old. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Ecotone, and the Paris Review, among many others, and have been reprinted in Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. He teaches poetry writing in various Detroit high schools through InsideOut Literary Arts; he also works with ‘Wings of Hope’ Hospice teaching poetry to children who have been through a trauma or loss. Holy work. His children have been published in Time Magazine for Kids, Skipping Stones, the North American Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and others. (photo credit:  Savannah Dooley)

Megan Stockton is a poet and publisher living in Detroit, Michigan. She is the current editor-in-chief of BathHouse Journal, a member of Problem Press, and editor at Weekday Journal. Her writing has been published by Publication Studio, Monster House Press, BigBig Wednesday, Bearings: Works About Boundaries, Flint Magazine, and A Plume Journal. She recently graduated with an M.A. in Creative Writing from EMU, and currently facilitates a poetry workshop at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility.

Naidra Walls is a​n​ ​artist, educator, and real estate agent. ​Their current projects include assisting Michigan residents in purchasing a home or business as a real estate agent, and the launch of a black creative guild that will connect creative entrepreneurs of color in the lgbtq community to necessary resources for success. Walls also contracts with organizations in Michigan for administrative work, graphic design projects, fund development, grant writing, and website management. ​Their academic background includes an undergraduate and a graduate degree from Western Michigan University in Marketing and Public Administration.