Author and Professor

Ramona Ausubel, a professor in the MFA program at Colorado State University, is the author of 3 novels and 2 story collections, including, most recently, The Last Animal, chosen by NPR, Kirkus and O, the Oprah Quarterly as a best book of 2023. Her other books are: Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, No One is Here Except All of Us, Awayland and A Guide to Being Born. Her work was chosen multiple times as a NY Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection, and she has won a number of prestigious awards, including the PEN/USA Fiction Award and the Cabell First Novelist Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Tin House, One Story, Ploughshares and many other journals.

Author & Activist
Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land

Taylor Brorby is the author of: Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land; Crude: Poems; Coming Alive: Action; and Civil Disobedience; and is co-editor of: Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. Taylor's work has appeared in many leading publications, including The NY Times, LitHub and Orion, and he has been supported by several prestigious fellowships, including from the MacDowell Colony and the National Book Critics Circle. He also serves on the editorial boards of Hub City Press and Terrain.org, is a contributing editor at North American Review, and teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Alabama.

Founder
Kahakulei Institute

Kevin Kahakula’akea John Fong, the founder, in 2021, of the Kahakulei Institute (“a team of bold leaders who work to weave people and possibilities into communities of belonging, healing and reconciliation”), is a cultural translator, facilitator and transformative justice advocate who previously founded and directed the Clinical HIV Program and Teen Clinic in Oakland and the organizational design firm, Elemental Partners. Kevin, who served on numerous boards, including for Within Our Lifetime, a national network to eliminate racism; is a featured host on the CNBC News series, Changing the Narrative, and is the author of: The Five Elements: An East Asian Approach to Achieve Organizational Health, Professional Growth, and Personal Well-Being.