InspiHERed By: Lyric Cabral

July 25, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week Lyric Cabral, a photojournalist and filmmaker, shares.

ELIXHER: Tell us … Read More

InspiHERed By: Stephanie Russell

July 18, 2011 | ELIXHER 1

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we caught up with Stephanie Russell, a 26-year-old Houston … Read More

InspiHERed By: Shawn Smith

July 11, 2011 | ELIXHER 2

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. In the spring we featured Shawn Smith, creator of HerSaturnReturns.com, in our “Friends We Follow” column. This week we learn more about Shawn’s personal journey, her thoughts on community, the role of artists/activists and more.

ELIXHER: Tell us a little about yourself.
SHAWN: My name is Shawn. I’m 28 years old. I’m from Brooklyn and I am a lesbian. [Laughs.] I am a lesbian. My mama said it’s okay. [Laughs.]

ELIXHER: [Laughs.] Are you originally from New York?
SHAWN: I am from New York. I’m born and raised in Brooklyn. Brooklyn has transformed since I was born here obviously. I really love living in Brooklyn. This is my zip code, 112- etcetera.

ELIXHER: What is it that you enjoy doing?
SHAWN: I enjoy doing my profession. I don’t really have recreational time, but I like to blend my recreational time with my professional time so that I can always do well in both. So I write and I am an archivist and librarian. I guess recreationally I produce theatre. I also enjoy money and working with money.

ELIXHER: What do you write?
SHAWN: I write non-fiction mostly. Although I’m trying to get into fiction, so lately what I’ve published are just non-fiction essays. But I write fiction stories. I haven’t really delved into how to publish the fiction yet. That’s something that I’m working on. There have been a lot of opportunities in poetry, which is why I begun writing poetry, not necessarily because I feel called to be a poet. My non-fiction is prose and in the fall, I will start an MFA in fiction. I’m super excited to be a student again, and to write with a structured feedback process.

ELIXHER: Tell us more about the theatre you produce.
SHAWN: I’m part of a collective called the WOW Theatre Collective. This theatre started thirty years ago and it’s always been a collective. We own the space that we’re inhabited in on 4^th Street between Second and Bowery and that’s why Rivers of Honey is dedicated to that space because Rivers started in ’98 and the collective wanted to have a space that was specific to women of color primarily because it’s a feminist theatre. The feminist movement and feminism in its historical context has largely been considered a White space and a working to middle class space. They, as a collective, wanted to be clear that it’s a space for everyone and it has always been primarily lesbian, so that part was already taken care of. Being a part of the collective, I really wanted to nurture that; that’s why I’m there. Theatre was secondary. I just really wanted to be a part of a collective space. I believe in community and in community building. I think that the best way to do community building is in a socialist way. In a way that’s non-hierarchical, in a way that’s a collective way.

I’m also a part of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which is also a collective. I joined that collective when I was an undergraduate. What prompted me to become an archivist and librarian was showing the importance of lesbian herstory and learning about other collective spaces that existed beforehand, learning about what the community really looks like and what it smells like and tastes like. Reading Audre Lorde’s writings and touching her pen, paper that she edited. Just being a part of that rich herstory was motivation to offer my services to this collective force.

Read More

InspiHERed By: Akwaeke Zara Emezi

June 27, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us.Read More

InspiHERed By: Amarachi Crystal Esowe

June 20, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week Amarachi Crystal Esowe, a 25-year-old Nigerian photographer shares.

ELIXHER: Tell us … Read More

InspiHERed By: Gianna Delgadillo

June 13, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we chat with Gianna Delgadillo, a 20-year-old reconstructive designer and Fashion Merchandising/Design … Read More

InspiHERed By: Chanell Crichlow

June 6, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us.Read More

InspiHERed By: Unique Robinson

May 23, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we catch up with 23-year-old Unique Robinson, a Baltimore native and dynamic writer/performer.

ELIXHER: So what brought you to NYC?
UNIQUE: I got this job working with New York City AIDS Housing Network and V.O.C.A.L., which is this membership-led organization comprised of people with HIV/AIDS and formerly incarcerated people. Really great. Really freaking great. I was an organizer so I did some of the trainings and presentations on why we should organize and get the community together to rally around legislation effect and people with HIV/AIDS. Phenomenal right?

I did that literally fresh out of school. Like May I was graduated. June I was here. And I did that until this September. Unfortunately…fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you talk to, it really took a toll on me physically. Emotionally, mentally, because one, I was the youngest person on staff. It was my first full-time position, first time really living in New York. It was just a lot to take on at once and it really fucked me over and burnt me out pretty badly. So I was like I’d much rather have my mental health in store.

I’m a creative person and I wasn’t able to nurture that working 50 workweeks. I was like I can’t do this anymore. I owe me too much. So I quit. And ever since September I just been like, thank the good Lord, I’ve been getting unemployment, but I’ve just been trying to nurture my creative side that’s been neglected for the last year and a half. Writing, performing, writing a ton, traveling, whatever I can do at twenty-three.

ELIXHER: What kind of writing do you do?
UNIQUE: I try to keep my hands in as many different pockets as possible. Poetry is my main vessel of communication—pretty much how I breathe. Spoken word because that’s the poetry that I perform, of course. A lot of it that isn’t performed is usually personal stuff. Plays. I’m writing plays with some of my peoples right now. Focusing on my own, trying to revise my play that I did for graduation. Short essays, creative non-fiction, a little bit of all of that. Raps.

ELIXHER: Are you also involved in the production of your plays?
UNIQUE: Yes! The one I did for my senior thesis, I really want to remaster, but I think right now it’s been put on the back burner because I am doing a collaborative project with two of my friends. I’m writing two acts and my friend is writing two, the other is writing two and we’ll put that together. You know, get some actors, get some grants and then try to put it on by June, but right now we’re still in the writing stages of it.

ELIXHER: When did you begin pursuing writing as a passion?
UNIQUE: I was ten. I don’t know whether it was so much a pursuit, but I definitely knew it was the form I wanted to communicate in for the rest of my life because it just felt so natural to me in a very unnatural setting. I was in school and they had this standardized test. They fucking bombarded us with standardized tests in Baltimore. And it was called “You’re a Poet, You Just Don’t Know It.” How cheesy is that? From then on I just started writing about any and everything. When I was in my early teens, like 14, I started becoming willing to bear my own burdens through writing, as well as comment on what the hell is going on in the world that I think people need to hear.

Read More

InspiHERed By: Alexandria Smith

May 16, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week 29-year-old artist and educator … Read More

InspiHERed By: Arianne Benford

May 9, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we connect with Arianne Benford, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based poet/producer/visual artist.

ELIXHER: When did you begin writing poetry and performing spoken word?
ARIANNE: I’ve been performing since I was four. My grandmother use to have me memorize poems and perform them at family functions and at church. Yes, I was that little girl, “Come on baby, do that poem for us.” My mom says I started writing poems around the same time, although I suspect it was a stream of rhyming words, i.e., the cat with a bat ate a rat.

ELIXHER: What drew you to the craft?
ARIANNE: It was just what I have always done. We had a lot of books laying around the house. Bibles, inspirational texts, classics from the time of the Black Arts Movement, and lots of encyclopedias and manuals. Between the beauty of some of the books from the Bible, like Proverbs and Psalms and the passionate skill of Lorde, Smith, Dove, Clifton, Rumi, Morrison and Walker, I learned that words have power early.

ELIXHER: Who or what inspires you?
ARIANNE: My mother graduated from college in her late 40’s, got her certification to teach Hatha Yoga at 60. My grandmother worked full time until she was 82. At 23, my girlfriend runs a branch of one of the most progressive queer organizations in the country, and consistently reminds me of the complexity of our complacency. At 30, my best friend is coming out to his very southern family. I am involved with Rivers of Honey, a 13-year-old cabaret for queer and trans folk of color, and together we put on 11 grassroots shows a year. I am surrounded by bad-asses; there is inspiration everywhere.

ELIXHER: If you had to choose three words to describe yourself, what would they be?
ARIANNE: Pensive. Irreverent. Emotive.

ELIXHER: What’s the biggest misconception people have of you?
ARIANNE: I tend to walk around with a frown. It’s something I am working on. The biggest misconception that people have of me is that I am angry or upset about something, when really I am just thinking real hard.

ELIXHER: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?
ARIANNE: Studies suggest that 1 out of every 10 woman has endometriosis. I’ve been dealing with a severe form of this chronic illness since I was a little girl. As a teenager I knew the school nurse better than some of my teachers. I’ve had to learn pain and mood management, and how the interplay between holistic practices and western medicine affects me.

Self doubt is a disease of the spirit. I am learning to push myself and get out there even when I really don’t want to.

Read More