Of African American, Eastern European Jewish and Muscogee Creek Native American descent, Dr. Gina Loring is a seasoned poet, vocalist, scholar, and teaching artist. She is Poet Laureate of In a Perfect World and the African American Policy Forum , received a Master Artist Fellowship through the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and served as Poet-in-Residence for UC Berkeley School of Law through the Henderson Center. Through youth cultural programming under the Obama administration, 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 in the Los Angeles Community College district and has provided curriculum development and cultural event planning for various youth-centered organizations, including extensive work with incarcerated teens and youth transitioning out of trafficking. She was featured on Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays, Rosario Dawson’s The Assembly, three De La Soul albums, two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry, and has been commissioned to write poems for Susan and David Rockefeller, Mickalene Thomas, Greenpeace, and Quincy Jones.