Meet The PAW Editors

Marlana-Patrice Pugh Hamer is a Poet, Writer, Performer, Educator, and Social Activist/Volunteer. Her original poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in various anthologies. Marlana is also an accomplished Public Speaker. In 1994, she won the District 10 Humorous Speech Contest (Toastmaster’s International, Inc.). More recently, she was a cast member in a Phoenix production of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf." A former high school English & Reading teacher, Marlana has a BA in English. Also an M. Ed. A lifelong learner, she is in the CLI National Poetry Publishing Class (Season 10). Marlana currently resides in the Phoenix Metropolitan area where she loves performing at Open Mics. Marlana also loves writing Instagram haiku poems. IG: @marlanapph.

Sandra Sanchez is a Salvi-American writer born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College with a B.A in English (Creative Writing). Her work explores the ways people continue. She’s interested in experimenting with genre and therefore doesn’t confine herself to a specific one. Her work appears in Tropics of Meta, Touchstone Literary Magazine, and Sin Cesar (formerly Dryland). When not reading, you can find her scrolling through twitter. 

JeannieLuv is a multidisciplinary artist who works across mediums to inspire others to honor their authentic truth by sharing hers. She has a Broadcast Journalism Degree from New York University and is an honored alumni of the Academy Gold Rising program. She has been writing poetry since she was a little girl and had her first poem published at the age of 8. Jeannie moved to LA in 2013 from the East Coast to merge together all of her creative passions and is so excited to be working on her first book as a part of the USC chapter of the Community Literature Initiative Program. You can find her on Instagram @awakeninginLA_

James Coats is a poet, performer, and educator born in Los Angeles and raised in the Inland Empire. He believes that poetry has the ability to bring diverse groups together, offering a way to connect through shared challenges, achievements and experiences. He is the winner of the 2021 San Gabriel Poetry Slam. You can find him attending poetry readings throughout California or follow his poetry via his Instagram @MrLovingWords. Additionally, you can take a poetry workshop with him through his organization Lift Our Voices Education which hosts an award winning workshop monthly called Be The Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop. He also has three self-published poetry collections If I had Lived published in 2018, All The Ways You Are Wonderful in 2020, and Home Is A Voice in 2022. His newest poetry collection Midnight & Mad Dreams is published by World Stage Press.

Larissa Freitas (She/Her) is a Latina poet from João Pessoa, Paraíba, in the Northeast of Brazil. She is shaped by the transformative power of literature and pays it forward with her own writing. She has been published in both English and Portuguese and is currently working as a teaching assistant of the Community Literature Initiative (CLI) Season 10 poetry cohort. She can be found on Instagram at @larizfreitas.

karo ska (she/they) is a South Asian and Eastern European gender-fluid poet living on unceded Tongva land. Their writing focuses on identity, mental health, survivorship, and the intersections of trauma and politics. Anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist, they find joy where they can. They have been published in Sobotka Literary Journal, Cultural Daily, Altadena Poetry Review, Marías at Sampaguitas, Glass: A Journal of Poetry among others. Their first full-length collection, loving my salt-drenched bones was released in February 2022 through World Stage Press. For updates, follow them on instagram @karoo_skaa or check out their website karoska.com.

Sakile Odimo is an award winning, Los Angeles based writer, director, performance artist, activist and professional. Odimo has been published in several publications. Her writing was first published in 2005, and since 2017 she has focused her creative work to
primarily address and delve into the intricacies of sexual, racial, and gender inequity, love healing, and femininity experienced in the United States. Her work has been featured in art galleries around Los Angeles including, Art Share LA, JuniorHigh, Gomez DTLA. She is currently writing her second book, Forged in Fire | Held in Love which is set to release at the end of 2023.

Nathan J. Lee is an operations management executive in the U.S. Army and an independent filmmaker

Lynda V. E. Crawford was born and raised in Barbados, and lives in the United States. Both homes sway and punctuate her writing. Lynda writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, and stretch voices. She's been a journalist, copywriter, website manager, and email marketer. Poetry won’t let go. Her poems have appeared in national and international print and online journals and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, ArtsEtc Barbados, The Caribbean Writer, The Galway Review, The Bookends Review, Exposition Review, Spectrum Publishing, Moonstone Arts Center themed anthologies (various), Crosswinds Poetry Journal, The Halcyone Literary Journal, Los Angeles Poets Society Los Angeles Poets for Justice: A Document for the People Anthology in honor of George Floyd, and Haikuniverse.  Her poem “Ballet Is Never Enough” was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize and the Nina Riggs Poetry Award.