Women’s stories and women’s empowerment speakers
patricia engel
New York Times BestSelling and INTERNATIONALLY AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST
Born to Colombian parents and raised in New Jersey, Patricia has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, her books have been translated into many languages and selected as an NEA Big Read.
Jamilah Pitts
Social Entrepreneur and Leading Voice in Liberatory Education and Community Repair
“I am the founder of two companies designed to support liberation, intergenerational healing and holistic development of communities of color through an emphasis on education and wellness. Let’s move toward liberation together.”
Danyel Smith
Award-winning music journalist | Producer | Former Editor-in-Chief of VIBE
“Danyel is one of the nation’s most astute chroniclers of pop and hip-hop culture.” — The New Yorker
susan abulhawa
Palestinian writer | human rights activist | poet | Essayist
Susan is one of the most widely-read Arab authors. A political commentator and contributor to broadcast news outlets, Susan Abulhawa speaks widely on the subjects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the power of storytelling, particularly for marginalized communities.
ladee hubbard
AWARD-WINNING Novelist + Scholar
Ladee Hubbard is the author of two novels: The Talented Ribkins which received the 2017 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the 2018 Hurston-Wright Award for Debut Fiction, and The Rib King (2021). The Last Suspicious Holdout (2022), her collection of short stories, explores the relationships between friends, family and strangers in a Black neighborhood over fifteen years.
Jasmine Brown
Doctor | Rhodes Scholar | Author of TWICE AS HARD, an invaluable history of black women physicians
Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight.
kristen arnett
Kristen is a darkly funny and unabashedly queer NYT bestselling author.
Kristen is the queer author of With Teeth: A Novel which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the NYT bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction. Her latest novel Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One explores the themes of humor and community.
priya huq
Bangladeshi Texan comic artist
Priya speaks widely on issues related to the comics industry, art, race, culture, identity and their intersections. In her talks, Priya focuses on practical advice for marginalized artists and cartoonists.
BRIDGETT M. DAVIS
award-winning memoirist and Filmmaker + Journalist + Advocate
Bridgett’s moving memoir, Love, Rita, examines the vivacious life of her older sister Rita. It is full of joy and heartbreak, family history and American history, and uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women.
hafizah augustus geter
Winner of the PEN Open Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award | A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought, The Black Period explores her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish.
Kai Harris
Storyteller Centering Black Women and Girls | Mental Health Advocate
Kai Harris is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan, who uses her voice to uplift the Black community through realistic fiction centered on the experiences of Black girls and Black women.
annabelle tometich
Award-Winning Author | food writer | restaurant critic | journalist
The Mango Tree is a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina "nobody" in suburban Florida. Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing from her erratic father's untimely death in a Fort Myers motel room and her fiery mother's bitter yearning for the country she left behind, to her own journey in the pursuit of belonging.