Alandra Chuney-Jackson is an InsideOut alumni, the Co-Executive Director of the Youth Development Resource Center (YDRC) in Detroit, and the founder of the Sisters’ Couch – an organization dedicated to de-stigmatizing mental health for Black women.
As a high school student, Cassidy Howard experienced InsideOut front multiple angles. A member of the 2021 InsideOut Youth Performance Troupe, Cassidy also served two terms on InsideOut’s Youth Advisory Board and was a recipient of the 2022 Citywide Poets Scholarship.
“InsideOut was a launching pad for a lot of my career.” Talitha Johnson was a student at Detroit’s Mackenzie High in 2000 when InsideOut’s Writer-in-Residence program came into her life. Today she is a Marketing Manager at the Detroit Regional Partnership, a regional economic development…
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2015-2020: Aja “Citywide Poets brought me to the realization that everybody is individual and important.” Before I started Citywide Poets, I wasn’t doing poetry in secret, but I did feel like an underground artist. It started off as a class assignment back in sixth grade and…
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2010-2015: Candance Candance performing her original work at InsideOut’s inaugural Share the Light benefit. (2017) Why I Write by Candance I write when people say I taIk too much. I write to set the world aflame. I write to speak for those who are afraid…
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2005-2010: Justin Rogers “Citywide Poets was pivotal in my social and professional life because it offered me a sense of direction and hope.” When Writer-in-Residence Nandi Comer found me in 12th grade of high school, I was a very shy student trying to navigate where…
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2000-2005: Jasmine Dorsey “This program is the reason I graduated high school.” I didn’t belong to any crew or group in high school because I always felt so different. I always felt alone because I felt too mature to even have friends in high school….
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1995-2000: Michael R. Jackson Photo Credit: Zack DeZon “Literally every aspect of my writing career came because a teacher encouraged me.” I’m Michael R. Jackson, and I’m from Detroit, Michigan. I grew up on the west side of Detroit, right off the Southfield Freeway. Growing…
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