Hanna du Plessis is Okay Then’s first featured voice. She used to facilitate social change and taught “Design for Social Innovation” at Carnegie Mellon University and the School of Visual Arts. Now she writes while dying of ALS. Publications include her first book, Bedsores and Bliss, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Song of Ourself, Voices in Unison,” and the Carlow University Creative Writing MFA 20th Anniversary Anthology.

Veronica Corpuz is an interdisciplinary poet who explores themes of her Filipino-American identity and family, as well as grief and loss in her work. She is a member of the #notwhite collective and Madwomen in the Attic program at Carlow University.

I Medina Jackson is a community educator, mother, poet, spoken word and Hip Hop artist with over a decade of non-profit sector leadership and management experience within the field of education. She is the co-facilitator for the Black Transformative Arts Network, and Director of Engagement at Pitt’s P.R.I.D.E. Program (Positive Racial Identity Development in Early Education).

Joy Katz’s poems and essays document race inside and around her transracial family. As part of If You Really Love Me, a multidisciplinary artist collective, her most recent project was live music for wage workers. She teaches poetry and nonfiction for Madwomen in the Attic and other programs across the country and eats a lot of licorice.

Adriana E. Ramírez’ nonfiction novella, Dead Boys, won the 2015 PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize. In 2019 she was awarded the Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for an Established Artist by the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Heinz Endowments. She is a poet, critic, essayist, and columnist. Her forthcoming nonfiction book is titled The Violence.

Dakota Rottino-Garilli has a wealth of experience in youth advocacy, education, and therapeutic support. She is a licensed social worker who has worked with challenges related to mental health, systemic inequities, and community empowerment. She serves as the Post-Secondary Support Program Manager at ARYSE Pittsburgh.

Cedric Rudolph is a poet from Alabama, a student of poetry and pedagogy, and a teacher of writing in many different settings. Among them: two years teaching creative writing at the Allegheny County Jail and a semester at the State Correctional Institute-Pittsburgh. Cedric recently placed third in Eavesdrop Magazine’s Queer Joy Contest.

Teddi Salsgiver is a neuroqueer poet and current MFA student at Carlow University, where she completed her undergrad in Creative Writing and American Labor History. She has been a member of the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops since 2013.. She shares her life in Pittsburgh with two partners and two puppies.