Autumn Brown (host) is a mother, organizer, theologian, artist, and facilitator. The youngest child of an interracial marriage, rooted in the complex lineages of counter-culturalism and the military industrial complex, Autumn is a queer, mixed-race woman who identifies closely with her African, European, and white lineages, and a gifted facilitator who grounds her work in healing from the trauma of oppression.
She was a founding member of the Rock Dove Collective, a radical community health exchange active in New York City from 2006-2012, and she serves on the national Board of Directors of the Common Fire Foundation. Autumn brings over 10 years of experience facilitating organizational and strategic development with community-based and movement organizations, and training organizers in Consensus Process, Facilitation, and Racial Justice. She has taught and presented in many places across the country, as well as internationally. She has facilitated with the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Slow Food USA, Bard College and WE ACT for Environmental Justice, among many others.
Autumn is a Worker-Owner at the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance (AORTA), a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy through political education, training, and planning. Prior to that, Autumn served as the Interim Executive Director of RECLAIM!, and the Executive Director of the Central Minnesota Sustainability Project.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Autumn has also completed specialized study in Theology at Oxford University and the General Theological Seminary of New York. She is a speculative and creative non-fiction writer, and has published her essay work via iambrown.org for 8 years. Most recently she has been published in Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press, 2015) and Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016). She lives in the Avon Hills of the great state of Minnesota with her partner, three brilliant children, a large and ridiculous dog, and many birds and other forms of wildlife.
You can contact Autumn at: autumn(at)aorta(dot)coop
More Autumn here.
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adrienne maree brown (host) is a writer. She attended the Clarion Sci Fi Writers Workshopand the Hedgebrook Writers Residency in 2015, and Voices of Our Nation in 2014 as part of the inaugural Speculative Fiction Workshop. She was a 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow and a 2013 and 2015 Knights Arts Challenge winner, writing and generating science fiction in and about Detroit. She is currently the Ursula Le Guin Feminist Sci Fi Fellow, and a Sundance/Time Warner 2016 Artist Grant Recipient.
adrienne is the co-editor of the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements with Walidah Imarisha, published by AK Press in 2015. She has helped to cultivate work and thinking about Octavia Butler and Emergent Strategy, gathering a loose knit network of people interested in reading Octavia’s work from a political and strategic framework.
In terms of writing, adrienne blogs regularly on this site, and is a contributing editor for YES! magazine.
adrienne is the facilitator of the Detroit Narrative Agency (DNA), supporting Detroiters to shift the narratives of the city towards justice and liberation. DNA just announced it’s 2016 Cohort.
adrienne is in her fourth year of Somatics Teacher Training to deepen her healing, doula and facilitation work. She is part of the Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity team, at the intersection of political education, community organizing, somatics and black love.
She facilitates the internal healing and visionary development of organizations throughout the movement (most recently Building Equity and Alignment for Impact Initiative, Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, Chorus Foundation, Correctional Association of NY, Young Women United, Positive Women’s Network, Black Mesa Water Coalition, INCITE!, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project in Chicago, New Orleans Parents Organizing Network, ColorofChange.org and Detroit Summer).
In the past few years she has been a co-facilitator for the Detroit Food Justice Task Force, facilitator for Detroit Future, and the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition. She has been a part of the faculty for the Center for Whole Communities. She partnered with Engage to facilitate a year-long Community of Practice on Networks and Decentralizing Leadership, 2011-2012.
adrienne was the executive director of The Ruckus Society from 2006-2010, and sat on their board through 2012. She was also a National Co-Coordinator for the 2010 US Social Forum.
Though she no longer serves on boards, adrienne is proud to have spent time on social justice organization boards including Allied Media Projects, Third Wave Foundation, and Common Fire, as well as many others.
A co-founder of the League of Pissed Off/Young Voters and graduate of the Somatics and Social Justice Cohort, Somatics and Trauma year-long, Rockwood’s Art of Leadership year-long training, and Robert Gass’s Art of Change year-long training, adrienne is obsessed with learning and developing models for action, community strength, movement building and transformation.
Email nandi at alliedmedia dot com to book adrienne as a writer, facilitator, singer, speaker, coach, or doula. Rates are negotiated based on the work needed.
More adrienne here.
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Zak Rosen (producer/editor) is a Detroit-based story maker. He hosts The Best Advice Show and co-hosts Slate's parenting show, Mom and Dad are Fighting. With his wife, he created and hosts the podcast, Pregnant Pause with Zak and Shira, which chronicles their decision to bring a child into this strange world of ours.
His radio features have been heard on NPR, CBC, BBC, PRI, APM, Deutsche Welle and Radio Helsinki. Zak was a staff producer on PRX's State of the Re:Union and prior to that, a co-founding producer of WDET's Detroit Today. He also made these hummus stories.
More Zak here.
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