BGL Team

Meet the awesome Brown Girl Team:

Ashley Young, Creator/Contributor

Ashley Young is a black feminist queer dyke; poet, non-fiction writer and teaching artist. She is a non-fiction 2011 Lambda Literary Fellow and a 2010 poetry participant of Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation Retreat for Writers of Color. She is the creator of an online writing project for women of color called Brown Girl Love and completed a chapbook inspired by the project. Her work has been featured in performance spaces throughout New York City, such as Queer Memoir, NYC’s The Inspired Word, Happy Ending Lounge and the Brooklyn Public Library. She is proud to be featured in Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion edited by Virgie Tobar (to be released November 2012) as well as upcoming publications in Gertrude Press, rkvry.com and Orchard Press’s Black Girl Anthology. Ashley works as a program coordinator for a non-profit and is currently working on a memoir. She lives in the West Village with her partner and their four cats.

Sara Vibes, Creator/Social Media Manager

Sara Vibes was born and raised in New York City. She is a black, polyamorous, queer, kinky, dandy top heavy princess.  Vibes is a musician, writer and educator in training.  She is an active member in LGBT communities in New York City.  She is a founding member of Nina Hartley’s SexWise.me, a sex-positive online community and wrote for SexWise Magazine.  Vibes has been interviewed by Nerve magazine and will be a contributor to Perverts of Color Anthology.  Her mission is to rip the veil off of the shame surrounding sexuality and make sex education accessible to everyone.

Becca D., Featured Artist Manager

Becca D. has been a performance poet for nearly five years. She’s been blessed to share the stage with Stacey Ann Chin, Saul Williams, Sonia Sanchez and many more. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and often dreams of a job in publishing, a rottweiler named Zeus, a wife and a son. She joined the Brown Girl Love Project in 2011, eager to continue making love to poetry.

Julie Moore, Blog Content Editor

Julie Moore is a clown and storyteller who comes from a family of writers, editors and nerds. She has a BA in Theatre from Hampshire College by way of Minnesota, New Jersey and Arezzo, Italy. She currently lives in Philadelphia.

 

 

Joy Hopkins, Artist Rep.

In a past life, Joy Hopkins founded a non-profit performing arts company which used the performing arts to raise funds and awareness for other charitable organizations in the DC area.  Joy draws upon that experience as an artist representative as part of her consulting business, Violet Business Solutions. In her personal life, she’s usually seen as Mommy/Big Sister, helper, protector, nurturer, administrator, and/or organizer. Joy tries to help others along their own journeys of personal exploration whenever possible.  She’s thrilled to represent Brown Girl Love!

Katie Diamond, Graphic Designer

Katie Diamond (katiediamond.com) is a radical queer comic artist and graphic designer. She graduated from the Maine College of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration, where she got the nickname “Megaphone” because of her extensive community activism. She strongly believes in the direct cross-over of art and politics, and uses this dogma in her everyday art practice. She has created many illustrations and cartoons about gender, sexuality, and sex education, and has designed a multitude of promotional materials for various local organizations. She is the publisher and editor of the queer feminist sex magazine Salacious, and her comic collaboration with queer performer Johnny Blazes is featured in the Lambda Literary Award winning anthology Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. She was named International Ms Bootblack in April 2011.