Serayah Silver
& Monèt Noelle
Marshall
"Knead"

Knead Logline: When the spirit of his unborn child appears to him, a man must change his life from the inside out to bring his child into the world.

Serayah Silver is an Artist, Lover, Reader, Student, Teacher and Worker from Goldsboro, North Carolina. They are in love with learning, with language and the ways Art heals by revealing certain truths. Their stories are quiet portraits of everyday people exploring extraordinary lives. Their reasons for returning to this planet are Love, Art, and Practical Magic; which are often one in the same. Connect with Milo on Facebook or Twitter.

Monèt Noelle Marshall is an artist and cultural organizer. She centers Black trans, queer folks and women in her work and defines her artistic practice as "rehearsal for the relationship." She is the founder and Chief Visionary Officer for Marshall Art & Consulting and the founding Artistic Director of MOJOAA Performing Arts Company. MOJOAA is a Black theater company in the Triangle region of North Carolina that centers Black playwrights of the South. Her work has been experienced in St. Ann’s Warehouse, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Open Eye Figure Theatre, Northstar Church of the Arts, Manbites Dog Theatre and Mordecai Historic Park. Most recently she has collaborated with African American Policy Forum on Gucci’s Chime for Change zine, Scalawag Magazine, NC Museum of Art, Historic Stagville, City of Raleigh and Columbia University. Visit Monèt's website HERE or connect on Instagram or Facebook.

Jiggs Burgess
"The Red Suitcase"

The Red Suitcase follows forty years in Pogue's life from his unusual birth to the death of his father and rediscovery of his own life. The play explores the sometimes difficult relationships between fathers and sons and how the sins of generations can be passed on unintentionally. Pogue is lead on a journey that takes him from, "we are the sins of our ancestors" to "we are the hope of our ancestors." A play of hope and survival.

Jiggs Burgess A Eugene O’Neill finalist for The Girl In The White Pinafore (2018), Jiggs is a native Texan. He currently lives on a windy hill top less than a mile from his childhood home (sad, but true) with his two lovely, if useless, dogs and five assholes who purport themselves to be chickens. While not a YA writer, one act versions of his plays The Girl In the White Pinafore, The Book of Dog, and Anna Mae have recently been produced in educational theatre circles to much acclaim. Jiggs has a BFA from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville Texas…just a few blocks from what was, at the time, Texas’ death row.

Contact Jiggs through his website HERE.

Vandy Beth Glenn
"Shelter in Place"

Shelter In Place Logline: When she betrays her gangster employer and goes into federal witness protection, a transgender bookkeeper must put her life on hold just when she was learning to live it authentically.

Vandy Beth Glenn is a Georgia native, writer, public speaker, runner, and comedian. She lives in Decatur, Georgia. She is a University of Georgia graduate with a degree in journalism. After she was fired for being transgender from her Georgia government job in 2007, she filed a lawsuit in federal court. She prevailed. The ruling in her case is a major precedent in civil rights for LGBT people across the United States.

She was the first transgender person to testify before a committee of the U.S. Congress. She has won awards from HRC, Stonewall Bar Association, and the lieutenant governor of Connecticut. She was Georgia Voice newspaper's choice for "Person of the Year" in 2011 and was a 2012 grand marshal in the Atlanta Pride parade. She has been working in the Georgia film industry for several years, and has completed one award-winning comedy short as writer/director.