Creative Justice Conference

We invite middle Tennessee LGBT+ teens to join us for our first conference exploring art and activism, “Creative Justice,” scheduled for Saturday, April 3, 2021, from 10am-5:30pm on zoom. This conference will feature workshops on poetry, zine-writing, and activism, along with a keynote address by Brittany Paschall and musical performances by Katie Pruitt and Gifted Queen. This event is FREE and includes free lunch via DoorDash for the first 40 registrants. Register today to save your spot!

Conference Agenda
10:00am – Break the Ice. Don’t let it Drip.
10:30am – Creative Justice Workshop 1
11:15am – Creative Justice Workshop 2
12:00pm – Door Dash and Vibes
01:00pm – Be You Open Mic
02:00pm – Dance Break
02:30pm – Keynote
03:00pm – Breakout Session
04:00pm – Community Presentation
04:30pm – Thank you!
04:45pm – Please Don’t Stop The Music!

Brittany T. Paschall does freedom work as an educator, minister, and organizing aligning social justice and education. Brittany started her lifelong activist work with the Oasis Center in Nashville and is the founder of We Remember Nashville, an intergenerational effort she found, that aims to address the historical terror of lynching and public memory in Davidson County. Brittany is an educator, liberator, activist, organizer, minister, writer, and leader at the intersection of social justice and healing for many on the front lines of activists’ work. She is a graduate of Grand Canyon University and the TTA Humanitarian Community Service Award recipient for the Status of Women. In 2017, Brittany was awarded a National ELLA Fellowship with the Sadie Nash Leadership Project. Her fellowship project, Nashville’s Daughter’s, engaged Young Women of Color by exploring mentoring (femtoring), historical exploration, social-emotional learning, and social action. Nashville’s Daughters is now a program of We Remember Nashville.

Brittany was named to the Millennial Leaders Project of Union Theological Seminary in the Summer of 2018. She is also an alumnus of the RISE Together program through Union Theological Seminary and the Racial Justice Learning Cohort through Faith Matters Network. Presently, she is an ELA Resident Teacher with the Nashville Teacher Residency in Metro Nashville Public Schools and a member of Freedom Time Collective. Committed to the power across the generations, Brittany is carried by the wisdom of many before her namely her late paternal grandfather, Rev. Dr. Julius A. Paschall, Sr. and her late maternal grandmother, Sarah E. Tolbert.

Gifted Queen is a 24 year old female LGBTQ artist and also the daughter of Nashville Hip Hop Legend “Kool Daddy Fresh”. She is currently working to make her own mark in the music industry while continuing to build her LGBTQ fan base and following. She had the honor of being a 2017 & 2018 Music City Hip Hop Award Nominee. June 23, 2018 she had the opportunity to perform on the Nissan Main Stage at the Nashville Pride Festival where 17,000 plus people were in attendance. The following year in 2019 she hosted on the same stage & began to build her relationship with the Nashville Pride community. By doing so, she has now found her focus in music which is to truly be herself & represent the LGBTQ community.

Kendra DeColo is the author of three poetry collections, I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers From the World (BOA Editions, 2021), My Dinner with Ron Jeremy (Third Man Books, 2016) and Thieves in the Afterlife (Saturnalia Books, 2014), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She is also co-author of Low Budget Movie (Diode, 2021), a collaborative chapbook written with Tyler Mills. She has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Millay Colony, Split this Rock, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House Magazine, Waxwing, Los Angeles Review, Bitch Magazine, VIDA, and elsewhere. She has performed her work in comedy clubs and music venues including the Newport Folk Festival, and she has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Vanderbilt University, and the Tennessee Prison for Women. She currently teaches at The Hugo House and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Marcus James is an award winning spoken word artist, teacher, and community advocate. He has performed at over 100 venues across California including, Dodgers Stadium, Warped Tour, Verses & Flow, and Button Poetry. He has taught workshops at various schools and organizations across the United States, including UC Santa Barbara, Gulf Coast University and Into Action. He was the coach of the LA Youth Poetry Slam team for Brave New Voices. His work has been recognized by the United Nations, Planned Parenthood, and the California Endowment for the Arts.

Shawn Reilly recently graduated with an M.Ed. in Learning and Design from Peabody College, and is a current M.Div. candidate studying interreligious encounter at the Vanderbilt Divinity School. They formerly served as the Vanderbilt Office of LGBTQI Life’s first student spring break program coordinator, and for two years as a senior mentor with the Oasis Center’s Just Us program for LGBTQI youth. Currently, Reilly is the program coordinator for the Trans Buddy program at the Program for LGBTQ Health at Vanderbilt, the first transgender patient navigation service in the country. In this position, Reilly works with Vanderbilt’s Gender Clinic, the only clinic for transgender health in the U.S. Southeast. Reilly is involved with a number of local organizations, and serves as the Student Engagement and Leadership Chair of GLSEN Tennessee, working with Gender & Sexuality Alliances across Tennessee to build inclusive and responsive schools for LGBTQI students. They also coordinate the GLSEN Tennessee SHINE team, which consists of ten LGBTQI youth working to shift the landscape for LGBTQI students in Middle Tennessee. They are a youth advisory board member for Youth+Tech+Health, and are a founding member of the TN Department of Health Transgender HIV Task Force.

| Gifted Queen | Creativity | Kendra DeColo | Conversations | Lunch (free for first 40 registrations | Music | Katie Pruitt | Marcus James | Zines | Joy | Brittany Paschall | Poetry | Shawn Reilly | You |