Administrative Staff
Suma Karaman Rosen
Executive Director
Dynamic classroom teacher turned nonprofit leader, Suma’s experience in corporate, nonprofit and educational settings has brought depth to her leadership of InsideOut since 2017. Suma is inspired by the resilient and empowered InsideOut students, and brings this passion to all corners of our work, from managing finances and fundraising, to amplifying students’ voices far and wide.
Ashley Calhoun
Development Associate
Ashley’s ability to build and maintain strong relationships is key to her role at InsideOut. From donor communications to major gift support, she ensures individual donors know the impact of their giving and can engage with our programming and students. A lover of arts across media and genres, Ashley also co-founded Literary Detroit to create meaningful connections between readers and writers across the city.
Lia Greenwell
Operations Coordinator
Lia brings masterful organization to her work as Operations Coordinator, where she focuses on capacity building, marketing, and office-wide systems. Serving as the hub where program and administration meet, Lia is equally skilled in supporting the InsideOut team and providing high quality customer service to external stakeholders. A poet and essayist, her writing has appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Missouri Review, and elsewhere.
Maureen Okasinski
Grants & Evaluation Coordinator
Maureen combines her love of numbers and a passion for arts into key processes such as program evaluation, grant coordination and reporting. A social worker by training, Maureen’s an empathic team player who helps us know that our programs work and enjoys telling the story of their impact.
Program Staff
Alise Alousi
Program Director
Alise has grown with InsideOut from the ground up. As a former Writer-in-Residence at Cody and Cass Tech High Schools, Alise learned first-hand how to cultivate and empower student voice. She brings this on-the-ground knowledge and many years of non-profit youth program experience to her work as Program Director, a position she has held since 2009. Alise is a talented poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and is a recipient of a Knight Arts Challenge Detroit award.
Peter Markus
Senior Writer
Pete found his calling as a Writer-in-Residence with InsideOut and has been with the organization since it was founded 1995. In addition to inspiring students in the classroom, Pete partners with schools to create programs that fit their needs. Pete has published widely about the transformative power of writing, co-editing To Light a Fire: 20 Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, and most recently a memoir, Inside My Pencil: Teaching Poetry in the Detroit Public Schools. A Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow, Pete is the author of the novel Bob, or Man on Boat as well as five other books of short fiction.
Justin Rogers
Citywide Poets Coordinator
Justin’s journey with InsideOut began first as a student at Cody High School where a Writer-in-Residence encouraged his writing and recruited him to join Citywide Poets. Since then, Justin has performed for international audiences and published his writing widely. Justin now coordinates our Citywide Poets program, elevating youth voice through weekly sessions around the city, guest writer workshops, performances, and open mic opportunities for youth.
Devin Samuels
Youth Leadership Coordinator
A masterful facilitator, Devin works with teens as a Writer-in-Residence as well as leading our Youth Advisory Board and Youth Poet Laureate Initiatives. Dedicated to uplifting and empowering youth voice, Devin has coached slam teams and performed his own poetry on stages around the country.
Kristine Uyeda
Schools Coordinator
With a passion for pedagogy, Kristine works with Writers-in-Residence and classroom teachers to cultivate impactful and meaningful learning. Kristine is an experienced teacher who has worked with young writers group homes, detention facilities, public and private schools and art centers. A multi-talented artist, Kristine has published poetry and microfiction in numerous journals, works with letterpress, and plays the violin and ukelele.
Writers-In-Residence
Joumana Altallal
Writer-In-Residence
Joumana Altallal was born in Baghdad to Iraqi and Lebanese parents. She is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia and is currently a first year MFA candidate in poetry at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program.
Joumana Altallal was born in Baghdad to Iraqi and Lebanese parents. She is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia and is currently a first year MFA candidate in poetry at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Virginia Literary Review, Inkstone, and Jaffat al-Aqlam, among others. Her writing has primarily focused on the Iraqi experience of loss (of land, family, and memory). She is most passionate about the creation of educational spaces that allow for healing, growth, and preservation.
Yasmine Badaoui
Writer-In-Residence
Yasmine Badaoui is a poet, mother and fiction writer based out of Dearborn, Michigan.
Cat Batsios
Writer-In-Residence
Catharine Batsios is from Flint, and currently stays in Detroit. She writes poems about the cities that build her.
Shawntai Brown
Writer-In-Residence
Shawntai Brown is a writer, literacy educator and teaching artist.
Shawntai Brown is a writer, literacy educator and teaching artist with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing from Western Michigan University and a Master of Arts in Literacy Learning from Marygrove College. You can find her most recent poetry in Kaleidoscope, Cactus Heart, and Synaesthesia Magazine. She is the founder of eLLe Kalamazoo play project series. She currently works as an educator in out-of-school literacy for youth and adults. In addition to her residency with InsideOut Literary Arts Project, she creates with Extra Mile Playwrights Theater and serves on the board of Queer Theater Kalamazoo.
Christiana Castillo
Writer-In-Residence
Christiana Castillo is an educator, activist, urban gardener and writer.
Rachel Cawkwell
Writer-In-Residence
Originally from New York, Rachel Cawkwell is currently a graduate student in English at the University of Michigan.
Originally from New York, Rachel Cawkwell is currently a graduate student in English at the University of Michigan. She earned a B.A. in English at Emory University and an MLitt in Women, Writing, and Gender at the University of St Andrews. She loves everything about poetry and storytelling, especially getting to create and share in community, as she has had the pleasure of doing with Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Project and 826michigan over the past three years. When not entranced by words, she spends a lot of time playing ultimate frisbee.
Franny Choi
Writer-In-Residence
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).
Ajanae Dawkins
Writer-In-Residence
Ajanae Dawkins received an English degree and full tuition scholarship with the OMAI First Wave, Hip-hop and Urban Arts scholarship, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ajanae Dawkins received an English degree and full tuition scholarship with the OMAI First Wave, Hip-hop and Urban Arts scholarship, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a two-time individual finalist of the Rustbelt regional slam. In 2015, she debuted her one woman show, Atlantic. Ajanae is a fellow of The Watering Hole and Pink Door writer’s retreat. She’s been published in The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic Anthology, and Winter Tangerine, and Gramma Poetry. She was awarded an Academic Excellence award for her manuscript and neurobiology research. Her work has also been featured on For Harriet, and Button Poetry.
Kelly Fordon
Writer-In-Residence
Kelly Fordon’s work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review (KRO), Rattle and various other journals.
Bayan Founas
Writer-In-Residence
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.
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.
Rose Gorman
Writer-In-Residence
Rose Gorman is an Assistant Professor at Marygrove College and the Resident Fellow for The Tuxedo Project, a community-based literary center in Detroit.
Justin Groppuso-Cook
Writer-In-Residence
Justin Groppuso-Cook is a poet, musician, and Metro Detroit native.
Mahogany Jones
Writer-In-Residence
Mahogany Jones is a lyrical force, hailed internationally for her work.
Audra Kubat
Writer-In-Residence
Detroit Music Award winning singer/songwriter Audra Kubat has released 6 albums to critical acclaim in a career that spans over 20 years.
Nadine Marshall
Writer-In-Residence
Nadine Marshall is a poet, avid reader, collaborator, and curator with an MSW and B.S. in Psychology/African American Studies, and currently lives in Detroit.
Natalie McKinney
Writer-In-Residence
Natalie McKinney is a Detroit native, poet, and storyteller.
Natalie McKinney is a Detroit native, poet, and storyteller. Natalie shares poems and short stories centered around the black community and its resilience. Emerging in Detroit’s writing community, she has facilitated creative writing workshops for middle school and high school students surrounding student led topics. She is a former participant in InsideOut’s Citywide poets and while working toward her BSW at Wayne State.
John Rybicki
Writer-In-Residence
John Rybicki was born and raised in Detroit. He is the author of three previous poetry collections, We Bed Down Into Water, When All the World is Old, and Traveling at High Speeds.
Lauren Ryder Williams
Writer-In-Residence
Born in the middle of the Detroit riots, Lauren Ryder Williams is a Detroit-girl, through and through.
Anita Schmaltz
Writer-In-Residence
Anita Schmaltz is a painter, photographer, writer and singer-songwriter.
Megan Stockton
Writer-In-Residence
Megan Stockton is a poet and publisher living in Detroit, Michigan.
Lauren Thomas
Writer-In-Residence
Lauren Nicole is a mother-loving, loving mother from the dispatches of 1970s Detroit.
Benjamin Turner
Writer-In-Residence
Benjamin Earl Turner is a writer, performer, and educator from the suburbs of Oakland, California.
Naidra Walls
Writer-In-Residence
Naidra Walls is an artist, educator, and real estate agent.
H.R. Webster
Writer-In-Residence
H.R. Webster is a poet and educator from New Hampshire, currently living in Ypsilanti, MI.
Board of Directors
Linda Spight,
President
Detroit Public Schools (retired)
Annmarie Erickson, Vice-Chair
Executive Vice President,
Van Dyke Horn Public Relations
John Bolden,
Treasurer
Executive Vice Chancellor,
Wayne County Community College (retired)
Teresa McAlpine, Secretary
Director of Marketing Operations,
Plante Moran
Annmarie Borucki
Special Projects Manager,
Midtown Detroit, Inc.
Maureen Clinesmith
Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA (retired)
The Hon. Denise Page Hood
US District Court,
Eastern District of Michigan
Cory Joyrich
Senior Director of Advancement
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum (former)
Michelle Krebs
Director of Automotive Relations,
Cox Automotive
Dwight Levens
Executive Director
Children Matter Forever (retired)
Kevin Rashid
Honors College Academic Service Officer,
Wayne State University
Phil Schloop
I.U.O.E. Local 547 (retired)
Laura Stevens
Director of Budgeting and Forecasting
Handelman Corporation (former)
Hiring
Schools Coordinator – Applications due 1/21/19.
Operations Coordinator – Applications due 1/21/19.
Writer-in-Residence – Applications open summer 2019