Nicole Homer

Artist Statement

The poet's job is to bear witness without neutrality or cowardice.

Nicole Homer's Pecking Order (Cover)

Bio

Nicole Homer is an educator, poet, writer, and performer whose work can be found in the American Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle, The Offing, Rattle, and elsewhere. A fellow of Callaloo, Bread Loaf, Tin House, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Homer serves as a Contributing Editor at BlackNerdProblems. Their collection, Pecking Order, explores race and gender politics in the domestic sphere. She is honored to have shared stages with poets in slams across the country, to have been the 2018 Dartmouth Poet-in-Residence at The Frost Place, to have received a 2020 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and to be alive. She is currently working on her next project, disappearling. She lives online at nicolehomer.com and lurks on social media as @realnicolehomer

nicolehomer.com

Fatima Farheen Mirza

Artist Statement

Fatima Farheen Mirza is a novelist working on her second novel.

First Draft is a substack publication featuring essays on creativity, writing, and more

Bio

Fatima Farheen Mirza was raised in California and now lives in London. Her debut novel, A PLACE FOR US, was a NY Times Bestseller and translated into multiple languages. She is currently working on her second novel.

Your Website

https://fatimafarheenmirza.substack.com

Mary Simpson

Artist Statement

Activism inspires my writing and visual art practice. I volunteer each year to help low-income communities file their taxes to receive government credits and refunds. I also lead my rental building’s tenant union and advocate for affordable housing in New York. Writing helps me process these issues through personal essays and nonfiction profiles. Painting comes from a place for which I have no words—which can be a relief, because confronting unfair power imbalances often leaves me with no more words to give. I fell in love with myth as a kid, when story—told through action, archetypes, and images—became my way of understanding the world. I am always thinking about the importance of community in storytelling. I believe we share stories so that others might see themselves reflected in our experience.

Mary Simpson, nonfiction essay published in July/August 2024 issue of the Brooklyn Rail

Bio

Mary Simpson is a writer and artist from Alaska, currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Bomb, Parkett, Broadcast, JRP Editions, The Happy Hypocrite, Hoosac Institute Journal, and other publications. She earned an MFA in visual arts from Columbia University, attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She won the Rema Hort Mann prize and has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum and the Boise Art Museum. She has shown internationally in galleries in Brussels, London, and Beijing. Her film screenings and lectures include the Artists Institute, The Kitchen, Goethe Institute, Henry Art Gallery, and CAM2 Madrid. She works as curator for the estate of Jimmy DeSana.

marysimpson.net