On our first night of our She Speaks poetry series, we ask a question that’s been featured in various recent debates in the public discourse: “How do you define a woman?” The deep, nuanced spectrum of answers comes from a varied collection of poets curated by Consuelo G. Flores, with live music provided by Maritri Garrett.
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Consuelo G. Flores
Consuelo is a respected artist, educator, and cultural practitioner specializing in Day of the Dead altars. She has curated various exhibitions, led academic workshops nationwide, and written and directed both short and full-length plays. She’s an active member of a threaded poetry collective whose first collection will be published in July. She has also curated the Day of the Dead altar installations as well as built the community at Gloria Molina Grand Park since 2021. Additionally, Consuelo has designed and built altars at The Disney Concert Hall for the LA Philharmonic, Self Help Graphics, The Irvine Fine Art Center, local news station ABC7 and various colleges and universities in Southern California. Among the exhibitions that she has coming up, are “Xicana” at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, in which four of her Paper Fashions will be exhibited from June – November 2025 and “Barrio 2100” an art show she’s curated at Avenue 50 Studio in July, 2025 which features the work of Armando Norte and their two adult sons.
Diana"D"Romero
After working with at-risk youth as a social worker, Diana began writing and producing for film and TV. Her work is rooted in social justice, including the award-winning Niña Quebrada, which explores sex trafficking. Now a wheelchair user, she continues to write, contributing to CW’s 4400, Good Trouble, and My Life is Worth Living. A Hollywood Fringe Festival Scholarship recipient, Diana will premiere her solo show Me, Myself and Other in June 2025.
Elizabeth Wong
Elizabeth Wong is a playwright, theatre director, sitcom writer, and teaching artist at Boston Conservatory@Berklee. Elizabeth's plays have been produced in the U.S. and abroad; including @LYS, LETTERS TO A STUDENT REVOLUTIONARY, CHINA DOLL, KIMCHEE & CHITLINS, SPACE NUNS OF THE RESCUE MAINFRAME, and DATING & MATING IN MODERN TIMES. Elizabeth recently produced and wrote an immersive multimedia art/soundscape VOICES OF THE UNIVERSE, inspired by NASA sonifications with images from the Los Angeles Astronomical Society. Her installation has been exhibited at the historic Mt Wilson Observatory, the Garvey Ranch Park Observatory, the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library, and at the Taxco Theatre gallery. Elizabeth along with Consuelo G. Flores and Andrea Goyan write in a six-member women's poetry collective founded by E.E.King. Their first book of badass poetry together, ILLEGAL FEAST will be published by Broadstone Media this month
Sehba Sarwar
Sehba Sarwar is a writer and multidisciplinary artist whose work tackles displacement, migration, and women’s issues. Her essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in Asia: Magazine of Asian Literature, Poetry in English from Pakistan, Callaloo, Creative Time, Aleph, Vallum, and elsewhere while her short stories are anthologized by Feminist Press, Akashic Books, and Harper Collins India. A second edition of Sarwar’s novel, Black Wings, was published by Veliz Books (2019), and her video collages have been screened in Pakistan, India and Egypt. She has also generated a large body of site-specific visual art installations. Born and raised in an activist home in Karachi, Pakistan, Sarwar is the recipient of multiple artist awards through organizations including LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Pasadena’s Cultural Affairs Division, Mid-America Arts Alliance amidst others. Her papers are archived at the University of Houston, and she serves as Altadena Co-Poet Laureate (2024-26).
Frankie Hernandez
Frankie Hernandez is a poet with a passion for honest storytelling. In 2024 she received the Eastside Arts Initiative in partnership LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes to produce “Daughters of Poetry.” This short film trilogy is told through Frankie’s poetry about living fully through birth and death with her daughters Delilah and Luna.
2024 also brought the release of the documentary film she produced, “Saving Malibu” about the 2018 Woolsey Fire. She is in production on a documentary film about a political poet as he performs on every continent in 2025. Her film and TV projects have been on NBC, HBO receiving international recognition from Goya, and Alma Awards and more.
As one of original members of Warner Bros Studios digital home entertainment team, Frankie worked on iconic projects such as The Dark Knight, The Harry Potter film series, and the Sex and the City films.
Frankie was part of former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's Office of Economic Development Roundtable for Women in Film - Los Angeles Women's Entrepreneur Day as well as the Los Angeles Valley Economic Alliance Business Accelerator Program.
Frankie is a native of East Los Angeles and lived in Malibu for 16 years.
Andrea Goyan
Andrea Goyan is an award-winning writer, playwright, and poet. In her spare time, she paints, walks her dogs, and co-host’s Metastellar’s Long-Lost Friends and Storytime. Recent stories are available in Small Wonders, Intrepidus Ink, Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures, All Worlds Wayfarer, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Molotov Cocktail.She's part of a collective of women poets. Their first collection "An Illegal Feast" will be out this summer. Andrea lives in sunny Southern California with her husband, the aforementioned dogs, and two cats. Some of her stories are available on her website www.andreagoyan.com and she’d love it if you follow her on Bluesky @andreagoyan.bsky.social
Pat Alderete
Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Pat Alderete writes with fierce honesty about the beauty and brutality of varrio life, offering rare insight into the inner worlds of a community often overlooked in literature. A founding member of PEN Center USA West’s Emerging Voices, Alderete has studied with celebrated writers including Sandra Cisneros, Luis J. Rodriguez, and Mona Simpson.
Her short stories appear in Joteria, PEN Center Journal, and numerous anthologies, while her performance work—spanning plays, solo shows, and literary readings—has graced venues from the J. Paul Getty Museum to KPFK’s Unheard L.A.. A longtime member of Macondo Writers Workshop and Writers At Work, Alderete is currently working on a memoir about Chicana life in East L.A.
She lives in Los Angeles with her wife, Mary, and their daughter, Alicia.
Olga García Echeverria
Olga García Echeverria(She/Her/Ella), born and raised in East Los Angeles, is the author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas. Her work has been published in The Sun Magazine, Imaniman: Poets Writing on the Anzalduan Borderlands, Lavandería: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Words, U.S. Latino Literature Today, Telling Tongues: A Latin@ Anthology on Language, among others. As co-literary executor of the beloved lesbian Colombian writer and publisher, tatiana de la tierra, she has worked with queer and feminist presses in the U.S. and abroad to help bring to fruition such projects as the republishing of de la tierra’s For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology (Sinister Wisdom 2018) and most recently Redonda y radical: antología poética de tatiana de la tierra (Sincronía Casa Editorial 2022). Olga has been an educator in the literary arts for over 25 years and currently teaches literature in the Chicanx Latinx Studies Department at California State University of Los Angeles.
Natalie Nicole Dressel
Natalie Nicole Dressel is a transgender actress/writer currently living in North Hollywood, CA. In 2019, she attained her MFA in writing for the Stage and Screen from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA, and in 2013 she earned her BFA in Theater from Michigan State University. Her play There is Evil in This House was a 2019 O'Neill NPC finalist and the winner of Best Ensemble at SheLA this past July. She has 10+ years of stand up comedy exp and in 2012 was named "Funniest Mouth of the South" in Chattanooga, TN. She's worked on two projects that are currently available on HBOMAX (Veneno, The Lady and The Dale) and in 2021, she is the recipient of an artist grant from West Hollywood and put up an exhibition of her work in 2022. Her play "Granny, or How to Forgive When You Can't Forget: A Play in Poems" was turned into an audioplay by Antaeus Theatre, which is available now wherever you find your podcasts.
Rochelle Newman-Carrasco
Rochelle Newman is a writer, performer, and creative strategist whose work spans poetry, theater, and cultural storytelling. Born on the “small island near Puerto Rico called Manhattan,” she draws inspiration from her Lower East Side roots. An award-winning playwright and published poet, her solo show Hip Bones and Cool Whip earned praise from the LA Times, and her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Independent, Off Assignment, and more. Her upcoming work includes poetry in Anger is a Gift (Luchadora Press) and an essay in Manna Songs (ELJ Editions).
In advertising, Rochelle has led inclusive campaigns that authentically engage diverse audiences. She is currently at Walton Isaacson, working alongside industry trailblazer Aaron Walton. Rochelle holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BFA in Theater from UC Irvine. She lives in West Hollywood with her husband, actor-director Carlos Carrasco, and their internet-famous pets @brewskiethecat.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
