Artistic Director & Co-curator

LM Brimmer (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist living on Dakota land in Minneapolis, MN. In 2019, they co-edited the anthology Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose and Pride with John Medeiros and Andrea Jenkins. Their essays and poetry can be found in Tiny Spoon, Heavy Feather Review, Adoption & Culture, Pleiades, Voicemail Poems, Quarterly West and elsewhere. They have received grants and fellowships from Minnesota State Arts Board, The Givens Foundation for African American Literature and The Playwright’s Center and hold an MFA in poetry from Virginia’s Randolph College and MA in English Literature from University of St. Thomas. As an educator, LM is English Faculty at Century College, they also teach at the University of Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Leadership Program. A former non-profit arts administrator, their strategy and communications work is now housed in 66 Wands Consulting, LLC.

Director of Operations and External Relations & Co-curator

Sherrie Fernandez-Williams (she/her) is a Black, Queer writer who earned her MFA in Writing from Hamline University.  She was a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and winner of a Black Voices in Children’s Literature award. She received additional grants and awards through the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Loft Literary Center, The Givens Foundation for African American Literature, Intermedia Arts,  SASE: The Write Place, and The Playwrights’ Center. The author of the book of poems,  Goddess of the Wholself,  and the memoir Soft, Fernandez-Williams, has published poems in journals including New Limestone Review, Aquifer: The Florida Review, and Duke University Press, among others. Her essays can be found in anthologies including We are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, How Dare We Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse, and The Poverty and Education Reader. Along with working with Queer Voices, Sherrie teaches Creative Nonfiction at the low-residency MFA Program at Augsburg University and Critical Reading and Writing at Hamline University.

Curatorial Associate of Programs

Folaṣade Adesanya (they/she) is a blooming neuro/quirky agender poet and curator. Their practice is rooted in an ongoing self-study and co-creative process with their ancestors. She is a 2024-25 fellow with the emerging curators institute, and has published writing with hair+nails, the kitchen and mn women’s press. She is currently crafting her first prose/poetry collection titled sacred is the place you touch. folaṣade is a co-creator with STUDIO ART GRIME DESTROY and founder of The Black Syllabus. She was born and raised in the bay area, currently living in minneapolis with her cat parsley. Folaṣade is also an aspiring flower farmer and beekeeper!

Curatorial Associate of Hosting & Retreats

Johanna Keller Flores (she/her) is a queer, Peruvian-American artist and administrator based in Saint Paul, MN on Dakota land. She has a history of serving as an administrative jack of all trades, a social media manager, programming coordinator, brand developer, and host of community events with local arts and community-centered nonprofits. Johanna’s writing exists in the spaces where queerness, mixed Peruana identity, and generations of magic and spirits come together across time, reality and music. She is a Lightning Rod Core Ensemble member, was a 2023 LAMBDA Literary Emerging LGBT Voices Fellow, the 2022-2023 Many Voices Mentee at the Playwright's Center, a Teatro del Pueblo Visiones Fellow in 2023, and an OurSpace Fellow with Twin Cities Media Alliance in 2021. Johanna is bilingual and bicultural, and an avid reader, writer, and cheerleader of queer literature across all genres.

Curatorial Associate of Marketing & Communications

Myrtle Lemon-Todd (they/he) is a Professional Hype Man™. Solely because of the body they inhabit, he is constantly advocating for justice; At a time when disabled trans folks are being forcibly de-transitioned, facing various exclusions, and working against our own legislature, Myrtle works to platform their stories and voices with engaging media in both the virtual and the physical. In their freelancing work as SharkyLemon, Myrtle creates art for and with the Trans community, educates and informs as Brand Manager of Smitten Kitten, serves as Campaign Manager and/or Communications Director for Representatives Finke, Curran, and Kozlowski, and collaborates a host of organizations aligned with their values and mission, including Queer Voices MN, Queer Equity Institute, TransForming Families, the Aliveness Project, and more. While not working, Myrtle illustrated, watches the WNBA, collects statement earrings, watches copious documentaries on sharks, and sings opera with their spouse and the kiddos, rescued greyhounds Arthur Boban and Calcifer Sylvia, in South Minneapolis (Očhéthi Šakówiŋ land).