Of African American, Eastern European Jewish and Muscogee Creek Native American descent, Dr. Gina Loring is a poet, vocalist, scholar, activist, and creative writing professor. She has served as the Poet-in-Residence at UC Berkeley Law School and is the current Poet Laureate of the African American Policy Forum. As guest artist of the American Embassy, she facilitated writing workshops and performed in over ten countries, and toured nationwide with Norman Lear’s Declare Yourself project. Her personal essays and poetry have been featured in As If Magazine, The Root, Chime for Change, Angels Flight/Literary West, Thrive Global, and For Harriet. With a BA from Spelman College, an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and a Doctorate in Education for which she studied at the University of Southern California and Clark Atlanta University, she teaches writing workshops with incarcerated teens and youth transitioning out of trafficking. She was featured on Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays, Rosario Dawson’s The Assembly, two De La Soul albums, two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry, and has been commissioned to write poems for Mickalene Thomas, Greenpeace, and Quincy Jones.