Angélica María is an internationally touring Chicana poet & musician originally from Los Angeles. Her work focuses on blending literary and musical landscapes to heal intergenerational wounds and reclaiming ancestral feminine power. This work has brought her across the country as a Tedx speaker, and as a finalist for the National Poetry Slam 2018.

Her work has been featured in the L.A Times, The Breakbeat Poets Anthology: LatiNEXT (2020) on Haymarket Books and Puma. She has been invited to bring poetic and musical presentations to countless universities across the U.S including Harvard University and Yale University, amongst others.

Wearing multiple hats as a producer, writer and composer, her music is a healing modality, combining a poetic lyrical style, storytelling and smooth soundscape to create a powerful listening experience.

Say My Name

How do we say our names? or better yet, what do our names say about us?  Why is it so accepted for society to alter and muddle our names for convenience? What does this say about history, language and assimilation? In America there is a negative stigma attached to names rich with accents and rolled letters. They are in constant danger of being silenced, and butchered. In this workshop, writers learn to reclaim the power of their names by first looking at their origins and meanings. From here, writers begin to see their birth title not as a burden but a badge of honor.

Speak Up & Speak Out | Take Back The Night

In this program, poetry and storytelling are used to empower students to speak up and speakout against sexual assault. The main goal of this program is to uplift the voices of survivors and raise awareness about sexual violence.

In a world, where silence allows sexual assault to prevail, telling our own stories is an extremely powerful act. As students share their stories, and listen to other people share theirs, they are working to create a safer space for all of us to exist and better understand how to prevent this problem in the future.

A Pledge To the Body

People of color carry centuries of colonization, shame, and violence in our bodies. Latinas at an early age become hyper sexualized in society. We are either fetishized or shamed for our style of dress, our hair, or our hips. In this workshop, writers identify a part of their bodies they have always been taught to hate and write a dedication to it. Through this process, writers can uproot shame and become patriots of their own skin.

In music and literature, historically storytelling has been used as a powerful tool for preservation and resistance. In this workshop, writers will explore how storytelling has been used to heal, continue our lineage, shape new narratives, and how students can use storytelling to amplify their own voices, empower themselves, and practice storytelling as a powerful form of resistance.

Attendees will explore the magic and the historic influence of Chicana & Latinx women in literature. In this workshop, we will use prose from a wide range of Latinx & Chicana writers to inspire new work from our attendees.The themes of this workshop include inheritance, ancestral knowing, celebration and divinity.