A one-day sanctuary
for writers, creatives
& storytellers.

Alexandra Elle is a New York Times bestselling author and restorative writing teacher. In her work and through her books, Alex aims to build community and healing practices through language.

Demetria L. Lucas is an award-winning journalist, author, podcast host, and cultural commentator whose work sits at the intersections of politics, entertainment, travel, and Black culture. For more than two decades, she has built a career asking thoughtful questions, challenging conventional wisdom, and creating spaces where honest conversations can flourish. She is the creator of travel brand #SeeSomeWorld, host of the critically acclaimed podcast Ratchet & Respectable, and author of Don't Waste Your Pretty and A Belle in Brooklyn.

Erica Buddington is the Founder and CEO of Langston League, a national curriculum firm specializing in culturally sustaining instructional materials that has reached 5 million scholars globally through partners including Google, Microsoft, Netflix, PBS, NYCDOE, Harlem Children's Zone, and Medgar Evers College — spanning the classroom to the C-suite. A spoken word artist and proud Hampton University graduate, Erica's entry into educational work began on the stage — performing at college slams and HBO's Def Poetry Jam before being invited to bring arts-based pedagogy into classrooms. That creative foundation remains inseparable from her scholarly practice, shaping her understanding of voice, place, and the transmission of knowledge. She holds an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Learning, Design, Innovation & Technology, and is a doctoral student in Culture, Institutions & Society at Harvard, where she is a Presidential Scholar Fellow. Her research recovers the overlooked curricular contributions of Black women educators and examines place as pedagogy — exploring how Black enclaves, displacement, and community space have always been sites of educational resistance and innovation.

Johnzelle Anderson is a licensed therapist by trade, and believes in the power of storytelling to heal, imagine, disrupt, and inspire. His writing focuses on mental health, race, relationships, and identity. In his book Mixtape: A Memoir, he weaves a raw, lyrical portrait of resilience, identity, and healing.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn writes at the intersection of rest, ambition, motherhood, and Black women. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and Forbes among other outlets. She was awarded a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship by The Carter Center and spent a year reporting on the mental health challenges of midlife high achievers. The author of The Rest Revolution: How To Reclaim Your Rhythm And Conquer Burnout When Overworking Has Become The Norm (Wiley, 2024) and The Rest Revolution Substack, she is currently at work on her first fiction project.

James S. Walker writes the Sensing Thinking Male Substack where he writes his identities as an ambitious Black Man, Husband, Dad x 3, Caribbean-American, New Yorker, Lover of Music and Memoirs.

He writes for the boy who watched and wondered, for the man who found joy, and for the person processing in the middle.