The People's Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward Audiobook

About the Authors

Maggie Smith is the author of several books including the New York Times bestselling You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She is a 2011 recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and has received several individual excellence awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.

Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise, winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. The poetry collection was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as awards from Lambda Literary and the Publishing Triangle in 2015. Jones is a cohost of BuzzFeed’s morning show, AM to DM, and previously served as BuzzFeed’s LGBT editor and Culture editor. Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Lewisville, Texas. He earned a BA at Western Kentucky University and an MFA at Rutgers University-Newark. He lives in New York City and tweets @TheFerocity.

About the Narrators

Mira Jacob is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Good Talk, as well as the novel The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, which was shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, honored by the Asian Pacific American Library Association, and named one of the best books of the year by the Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, Bustle, and Millions. Her recent work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Guernica, BuzzFeed, The Telegraph, Bookanista, and The Scofield.

Hala Alyan is the author of the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists’ City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, the New York Times, the London Guardian, and Guernica. She works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.

André Santana is an award-winning audiobook narrator on a journey to tell great stories. Operating with a keen sense for realistic delivery, he inevitably becomes a fan of every book he narrates and shares that joy through his performances. As a non-binary and Black narrator, he loves both telling stories that match him and disappearing into new characters across the literary multiverse.

Abi Maxwell is the author of Lake People. She studied writing at Beloit College, and earned an MA in English at Northern Michigan University and an MFA in fiction at University of Montana. She grew up in Tilton, New Hampshire, and now lives in Gilford, where she works at her town’s library.

Tiana Clark is the author of several poetry collections, including I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium, which won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Her other honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, where she studied Africana and women’s studies. She is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Find out more at TianaClark.com.

Jill Damatac is a writer and filmmaker born in the Philippines, raised in the United States, and now a citizen of the United Kingdom. Her film and photography work has been featured on the BBC, Time, and film festivals worldwide. Her short documentary film Blood and Ink (Duo at Tinta), about the indigenous Filipino tattooist Apo Whang Od, was an official selection at the Academy Award–qualifying DOC NYC and winner of Best Documentary at Ireland’s Kerry Film Festival. She holds an MSt in creative writing from Cambridge University and an MA degree in documentary film from the University of the Arts London. Follow her on IG @JillDamatac.

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.