Leadership Team

 

Nicole Shawan Junior, Founder & Executive Director

Nicole (they/she/us/we) is a counter-storyteller born and bred in the bass-heavy beat and scratch of Brooklyn, where the cool of inner-city life barely survived crack cocaine’s burn. Their creative nonfiction is anthologized in Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing (Blair 2025) and The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket 2022). Their essays are published in Oprah Daily, Guernica, Teachers & Writers Magazine, The Rumpus, and many more. They’ve received residencies and fellowships from Tin House, Hedgebrook, Periplus, Changemaker Authors, NYFA, Lambda Literary, Esalen, Radar, and more. They are an editor, an educator, and a former felon whose commitment to amplifying invisibilized and insurgent narratives has led them to mentor hundreds of writers. Nicole’s work is Best of the Net nominated, a second-place winner of the Brooklyn Nonfiction contest, and a Longreads “Top 5” of the Week recipient. Learn more about Nicole.

 
 

Ayinde Jean-Baptiste, Writers’ Retreat Manager

3rd culture seed of two Caribbeans --- one born in the 1st surviving republic in the Western Hemisphere to throw off the yoke of slavery, the other in a colony, Ayinde Jean-Baptiste (Ayinsko: he\they\li) does what it takes, using voice to shift culture, engaging with communities of listening, memory-making, and movement. Disciple of Kamau Brathwaite, Ayinsko is a sanba/ keeper of memory, whose modal practice shifts as needed — the participatory media project DuSable City, the online creative sousou Someplace Like Home, the experi(m)ent(i)al podcapsule trance-mission DrumLanguage (2013-16), occasional acts of journalism. seek @Ayinsko, anywhere

 
 

Danielle “Dee” Stelluto, Communications Manager

Dee (she/they) is a womanist, writer, blessed mother of two children, and audio engineer. They are Bronx-bound and of both Boricua and Italian descent. A lesbian and multidimensional being, Dee earned an AAS Degree in Digital Music Engineering at Hostos Community College. More recently, Dee obtained their BA Degree in Community Organizing and Women's and Gender Studies at CUNY. A RWW alum, they have engaged in a multitude of writing workshops across NYC. Currently, her creative non-fiction prose piece, “Best Gift I Can Give My Kids and Single Parenting Through the Pandemic” has been published in Mom Egg Review. In-between it all, they find great joy and peace in nature or riding the waves of music in their home studio.