Libby Mislan (she/her) is a poet and community-based artist living in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2018, and in 2019 she was the recipient of an artist grant with Queens Arts Fund to produce Queens Flora, a poetry project about the plants and history of the Ridgewood Reservoir. She works as a teaching artist in New York City public schools with Community-Word Project, City Lore, and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Libby is currently working on a new series of poems with support from a grant from New York State Council on the Arts, that explore what it means to restore health amidst capitalist burnout, tech addiction, and climate change. You can learn more about her work at her website, www.libbymislan.com.

During "Mapping Change: A Memoir & Multidisciplinary Performance Project," participants will engage in weekly creative writing prompts that investigate the theme of “change.” The weekly writing prompts will guide participants to reflect on their own lives by sharing stories about geographical or housing moves, relationships beginning and ending, major life transitions, changes in perspective, internal, spiritual shifts, and socio-cultural changes. Inspiring readings, lively dialogue and sharing will be part of each session. In the final weeks of the process, we will collaborate with professional musicians and dancers to bring participant’s stories to life as a multidisciplinary storytelling and dance performance. We will also self-publish a book of participant’s stories.