Educator Innovator

Mahogany L. Browne is a Kennedy Center Next 50 fellow, writer, play-wright, organizer, and educator. Browne received fellowships from ALL ARTS, Arts for Justice, AIR Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, and Wesleyan University. Browne’s books include A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for Steppenwolf Theatre), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. She is the inaugural poet in residence at the Lincoln Center and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Ph.D. (she/her), is a Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her poetry collections, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems (2020) and The Peace Chronicles (2021), explore themes of love, healing, and growth toward liberation. She is co-author of the multiple award-winning A