BLM Residents

Pia Wilson is a 2023 Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Grove participant for How to Build a Revolution, a musical for which she and Lynn Rosen are co-writing the book and Grammy winner Paula Cole is writing the music. She is also a Newark Creative Catalyst grant recipient, Traveling Master for Dramatist Guild Foundation, resident with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Sundance fellow, and member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater. Her plays have been produced by AD Players, Crossroads Theatre, Workspace Collective, Drew University, Adelphi University, Horse Trade Theater Group, and The Fire This Time play festival. Her fiction podcast, IF I GO MISSING THE WITCHES DID IT, starring Gabourey Sidibe, is available wherever you get your podcasts and was listed as one of the Best New Podcasts of 2021 by Variety and Mashable. In television, Pia was a staff writer for NatGeo’s GENIUS ARETHA and BET’s SACRIFICE.

Leslie-Ann Murray a fiction writer from Trinidad & Tobago. She created Brown Girl Book Lover, a social media platform where she interviews diverse writers and reviews books that should be at the forefront of our imagination. She also produces a monthly newsletter, Come Get Your Diversity. Leslie-Ann  is currently working on her first novel, This Has Made Us Beautiful. Leslie-Ann has been published in Poets & Writers, Zone 3, Ploughshares, Brittle Paper, Obsidian Literary Magazine, and Salamander Literary Magazine.  Leslie-Ann has taught creative writing in France, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, China, and New York City. She’s currently the Director of Education Programs at Bard Prison Initiative.

Allison is a former Army veteran and career transitioner into journalism. She holds a B.S. in News-Editorial Journalism, and focused her honors thesis on race bias in the media with a comparative analysis on The Times' coverage of Shoshanna Johnson and Jessica Lynch. She then worked active duty as a Medical Service Corps officer for 7 years, and later attended graduate school at The New School for Social Research, where she graduated with a M.A. in Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism. https://allisonerickson.carbonmade.com/

Marcus is a writer, a teacher, a researcher, and a purveyor of culture, drawing critical segues among race, identity, art, and our evolving humanity through storytelling. Griot-descended from Laurel, Mississippi—a keeper of things—and a dreamer from Compton, California. His work has appeared in The Tenth, Ebony.com, Quartz, Afropunk, and the Medium publication, P.S. I Love You. He received a B.A. in American Literature and Culture from UCLA with a minor in Political Science. Three years later, while working as a personal executive assistant to a music producer, he received a Master of Communication Management from the University of Southern California (USC), Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. At present, he is a Dr. W. Burghardt Turner Fellow and PhD Candidate (ABD) in Cultural Studies & Africana Studies in the Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature at Stony Brook University.https://www.marcusbrock.net/