The Humane Experience: Event Details

Gabi Tabib

Gabi Tabib is a graduate student at Florida Atlantic University studying counselor education. They have been working in the field of mental health for many years, and continues to use her work on campus and within the community as a platform to reduce stigmas surrounding mental illness. Gabi has always had a passion for reading, writing, and the art of words. They seek to create writing for the literature community that is not only inclusive, but offers a different perspective of mental health. Gabi currently lives in Boca Raton with their partner and comic book artist, Alex, and a menagerie of cats and snakes and plants.  

Kandy G. Lopez

Kandy G. Lopez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Performing and Visual Arts at NOVA Southeastern University. As a visual artist, Lopez explores constructed identities, celebrating the strength, power, confidence and swag of individuals who live in urban and often economically disadvantaged environments. With a variety of mediums, her images develop a personal and socially compelling visual vocabulary that investigates race, the human defense mechanism, visibility and armor through fashion, and gentrification. Lopez wants her artwork to help educate, communicate, and foster uncomfortable topics that we seem to look past or avoid in our multi-cultural society. Representing individuals within poor communities in the U.S., these portraits help her, as a female Afro-Dominican American, come to terms with the way she too has to adopt and perform identities of survival.

Laura McDermott Matheric

Laura McDermott Matheric is the founder and executive director of Orange Island Arts Foundations and also a tenured assistant professor of English at Broward College where she was the recipient of the 2014 Wells Fargo Endowed Teaching Chair.  Laura studied creative writing at FSU and received her MFA degree in poetry from FIU. Because of her dedication to higher education and writing, Laura received recognition as a 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication Professional Equity Project Grant Recipient and was awarded the 2012 Paragon Award by the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. She was the 2014-2015 Writer-in-Residency of Girls'Club. As a member of the Miami Poetry Collective, her poetry is regularly featured in its Cent Journal Series. She also won honorable mention in the 2013 Poetry Society of Virginia’s annual poetry contest. Her first poetry collection will be published by Lominy Press Summer of 2015.

M.J. Fievre

M.J. Fievre is the author of Happy, Okay? Poems about Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Survival (Books & Books Press, 2019). She helps others write their way through trauma, build community and create social change. She works with veterans, disenfranchised youth, cancer patients and survivors, victims of domestic and sexual violence, minorities, the elderly, those with chronic illness or going through a transition and any underserved population in need of writing as a form of therapy—even if they don’t realize that they need writing or therapy. Contact MJ @ 954-391-3398 or emailhappyokay@gmail.com.

Richard Fyal

For decades in California and Florida, Richard Ryal has presented readings by local and national poets. He sees the poetry community as a vital service to society because poetry can give us new ways to express feelings and ideas that support new ways to understand our lives. He’s a culture-driven kind of guy.

His own poetry explores language than falls off the map’s margins, seeking intuitive descriptions and associations that support new thoughts and new ways of thinking. He also loves the process of writing and teaching about writing for their own sake.

However, Richard has yet to find the way to look good in a hat.

Rita Maria Martinez

Rita Maria Martinez looks to her favorite literary and comic book icons for inspiration. Her Jane Eyre-inspired poetry collection—The Jane and Bertha in Me—was published by Kelsay Books in 2016.  The book was selected as a finalist for the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and a semifinalist for the Word Works Washington Prize. A migraine warrior, Martinez's current writing explores resiliency amidst chronic pain. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears in places like The Best American Poetry Blog, Ploughshares, and the Notre Dame Review. An independent reading and writing tutor, Martinez helps students of all ages and abilities thrive academically. She has also taught at FIU, MDC, and BCC. To learn more about Martinez’s work, visit www.comeonhome.org/Martinez or follow her on Twitter @cubanbronteite.

Taryn Moller Nicoll

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Taryn Moller Nicoll immigrated to the United States in 2004.  She received her Master of Fine Arts from Louisiana State University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors from Otis College of Art & Design, Los Angeles. With a passion for working with contemporary artists across the globe, Taryn’s experience includes exhibition development at venues such as the Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art, the TEDA Museum of Modern Art in Tianjin, the Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan, the Shaw Center for the Arts in Baton Rouge, and the Louisiana Art and Science Museum. While teaching studio art at Louisiana State University, Taryn was a frequent guest lecturer on the fusion of art, community and communication at international institutions such as the University of Dresden, Germany, and the University of Pretoria, South Africa. As the Chief Curator for The Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery and Exhibit Hall, she furthers the art gallery’s vision for inclusivity by identifying and collaborating with culturally significant artists and organizations to design a robust annual calendar of exhibitions and artistic programs that engage diverse audiences of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.