FROM TOP LEFT TO RIGHT:

Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez, Composer; Brooklyn, NY — “Growing up in a family of musicians, music was Raina’s first language. Whether playing improvisation games on a long car ride or singing made up stories while her dad played the piano, these formative familial experiences of music making continue to be the basis of her process. Raina began to write songs at an early age as a way to make space for her own voice. These songs eventually developed into a real habit, leading her to apply to college as a songwriter, the beginnings of what would continue to be a positive obsession. Raina studied at Bard College, graduating in 2016 with a major in Music. She focused on Jazz composition and performance. She studied Jazz piano and Classical voice. She dug into free improvisation – bringing her childhood games into instrumental ensembles. She studied poetry – negotiating between meaning and sonic playfulness. For her Senior Thesis, she composed two hours of music for a wide array of instruments and voices. After graduating, Raina attended the Johnny Mercer Songwriters project in 2017 where she wrote songs that would later be on her debut album If They’re Mine released in Spring 2021. Over the past 6 years, Raina has had concerts of her original music at venues in New York City such as Brooklyn Bowl, SOB’s, Public Records, to name a few, with ensembles ranging from trio to octet. She has toured the East Coast multiple times, did a solo run in Europe in 2022, and is set for a 2-week tour in the West Coast in November 2022. Digging into the free Jazz scene in NYC, Raina has had the honor of playing with composer and bass player William Parker, performing with him at venues such as The Kitchen, Roulette, Town Hall, and at Sons D’Hiver Festival in Paris. She recorded an album of Parker’s music as part of his box set Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World that was released in January 2021. Collaboratively, Raina is a part of Emergence Collective which is made up of four music-artists; Kate Douglas, Matthew Marsh, Sylver Wallace, and herself. Here they lean into the glory of multiple voices. Emergence Collective was in Residence at the Ancram Opera House in 2021 where they developed their docu-musical ‘Perennials’. They are currently finishing an album of this music set for release in Spring 2023. In addition to her performance and compositional work, Raina teaches private lessons in piano, voice, composition, and improvisation to people ages 5-40. She also teaches music to groups via programs facilitated by Art for Arts and Town Hall.

Sally Wen Mao, Poetry; New York City —  “In 2012, I earned my M.F.A. at Cornell University. My first book of poems, Mad Honey Symposium, won the Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books and was a Poets & Writers Top Ten Debut of 2014. My second and most recent book of poems, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry. It was reviewed by outlets such as The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Poetry, and named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2019, one of Book Marks’ Best Reviewed Poetry Books of 2019, and a Best Poetry Book of 2019 from NPR, Marie Claire, and Library Journal.  Having received fellowships and scholarships from Kundiman, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Lannan Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and Saltonstall Foundation, I am always looking to give back to the community. I have taught writing classes and workshops at many different institutions, including Cornell University, Hunter College, The George Washington University, Sarah Lawrence College, Poet’s House, the 92nd Street Y, Catapult, The Brooklyn Public Library, The Asian American Writers Workshop, among others. Currently, I teach a poetry craft class at the NYU Creative Writing MFA, as well as an undergraduate poetry workshop at NYU Gallatin.  I was the 2015-2016 Singapore Creative Writing Residency Writer-in-Residence, a 2016-2017 Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library, the 2017-2018 Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington at the George Washington University, and the 2021 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. I have won two Pushcart Prizes (2017, 2022) and a National Endowment for the Arts poetry grant (2021). My poetry has been published in The Best American Poetry 2021 and 2013, The Paris Review, Poetry, Harpers Bazaar, The Kenyon Review, A Public Space, and others.  Recently, I have begun writing in other genres, including fiction and nonfiction. My short fiction has been published in The Georgia Review and Indiana Review, and my debut collection of fiction, Ninetails: Nine Tales, is coming out from Penguin Books in 2024.”

David Gorin, Poetry; Phoenix, AZ — David’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in A Public Space, Best American Experimental Writing, Boston Review, Iowa Review, the PEN America Series, and elsewhere. His writing received the 2023 Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America and has been supported by fellowships from MacDowell and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; this spring, he was named a runner-up for the 92Y Discovery Prize. In recent years he has taught creative writing and literature at the Pratt Institute, Deep Springs College, Eastern Correctional Facility (via the Bard Prison Initiative), MacDougall Walker Correctional Institution (via the Yale Prison Education Initiative), and Yale University.

Rosemarie Fiore, Visual Arts; Bronx, NY — Rosemarie produces artworks out of the actions of mechanisms by converting popular technology such as lawn mowers, cars, waffle irons, floor polishers, pinball machines, fireworks and amusement park rides into painting machines. She received their BA and BFA from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Residencies include Kohler Arts/Industry Program, Kohler, WI, Akrai Residency, Sicily, Art Omi International Artists Residency Program, Ghent, NY, Yaddo, Saratoga, NY, Skowhegan, ME, MacDowell, Peterborough, NH, Wavehill Workspace Program, Bronx, NY, Roswell Foundation AIR Program, Roswell, NM, Sculpture Space, Utica, NY, Abrons Art Center, NY, NY, Saltonstal Foundation, Ithaca, NY, VCCA, Amherst, VA, Ragdale, Lake Forest, IL, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY and the Bronx Museum (AIM Program), Bronx, NY. Rosemarie has received awards through The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn, NY, The New York State Council for the Arts, NY, NY, The Sally and Milton Avery Foundation, Skowhegan, The Bronx Council on the Arts, Bronx, NY, The Walentas-Sharpe Studios Foundation, Brooklyn, NY, The Lower East Side Print Shop, NY, NY, The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and The Dieu Donne Paper Mill, NY, NY. Her solo and group exhibitions include: MOCA, Jacksonville, FL. The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY, The SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah and Atlanta, GA, Von Lintel Gallery, New York and Los Angeles, Winkleman Gallery, NY, NY, VCUarts, Richmond, VA, Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO, The Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY, The Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, NY, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY, Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, NM and The Franklin Institute of Science, Philadelphia, PA.  Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times, New York Magazine, Art in America, Artforum, The Village Voice, NY Arts Magazine, FLAUNT Magazine, Art Papers Magazine, The Washington Post, Art on Paper, Artcritical.com, Art and Cake, Art Ltd. Magazine, and is in the following public collections: Kohler Co., WI, John Michael Kohler Art Center, WI, US Art in Embassies, Colombo, Sri Lanka, UBS Art Collection, Zurich, Switzerland, Fidelity Corporate Art Collection, Boston, MA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, The Cosmopolitan Hotel, Las Vegas, NV, Neuberger Berman, NY, NY, The Aspen Collection, NY, NY, Capital One, Richmond, VA, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX and The Franklin Institute of Science, Philadelphia, PA.

Praveen Herat, Fiction, Paris, France — Praveen was born in London to Sri Lankan parents and educated in the UK, where he graduated from University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA. He lived and worked for several years in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and has lived in Paris for the past decade. Praveen is our second Restless Books Fellow.

Neil Daigle Orians, Visual Arts; Cincinnati, OH — Neil is an artist, curator, and educator living and working in Cincinnati, Ohio, the native homeland of the Indigenous Algonquian speaking tribes, including the Delaware, Miami, and Shawnee tribes. They received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and MFA in Studio Art from the University of Connecticut. From 2016-2021, they served as Visual Arts Manager at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, organizing and curating more than 100 exhibitions, public events, and performances. They have received residencies from the International Print Center of New York, Stove Works (Chattanooga, TN), and The Morgan Conservatory (Cleveland, OH). Recent exhibition venues and project sites include: Radiator Arts (Queens, NY); International Center for Printmaking (New York, NY); Salisbury University (Salisbury, MD); University of Nebraska-Omaha (Omaha, NE); and Alexander Brest Gallery (Jacksonville, FL). They are currently an Assistant Professor and Area Head of Printmaking at the University of Cincinnati.  I used to have a long and carefully written statement. My recent move across the country to Ohio forced me to reorganize my practice in a way that was desperately necessary, and as an unintended result I’ve reconsidered the function of a statement that goes along with my work. My ADHD makes connecting dots between my disparate interests a difficult but not impossible task. Regardless, it seems pointless to try and explain the goals or motivations or ideas behind my work on a singular web page. So instead, I’ll offer a handful of keywords (in no particular order) and let you put the pieces together. I think it’s more fun that way. dialectics • archive • memoir • queerness • identity • loss • haunting • mental health • print • ghosts • saturation • narrative • transmedia • publication • pressure • multiplicity • glitch • nuance • anxiety • politics • masculinity • pixels • sexuality • bodies • DIY • pop culture • alternate reality games • failure • history.