Production Details

Everyone Has a Story to Tell
The theme of the event, Everyone Has a Story to Tell, is a testament to the heritage that dwells in the veins of every human being. Stories connect and bridge differences. History lives within us -- a compelling narrative waiting to be told, whether a person knows it or not; every single person has a story within them.

Speakeasy Storytellers
The Speakeasy Storytellers is a multi-generational and multi-cultural forum for supportive storytelling that has spread throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization was created by Abdul Kenyatta in 2012 as a forum for storytellers celebrating the art and craft of story-making and built upon a lifetime of story-telling experience.

Artist Biographies

Abdul-Kenyatta
Abdul Kenyatta is a storyteller who performs on National Public Radio- Snap Judgment and numerous stages around the country. He has won numerous Bay Area storytelling competitions including the Berkeley and San Francisco Moth. He has appeared at the Marsh Theaters in Berkeley and San Francisco with excerpts from his three one-person shows- STRICTLY HARLEM, BACK IN THE DAY and CONFESSIONS OF AN ANGRY AFRICAN IN AMERICA. In the San Francisco Bay Area, he has performed as an actor, poet, and jazz and blues vocalist.

Tureeda Mikell
Tureeda Mikell is the author of, The Body Oracle of Memory (2024 Black Lawrence Press) and Synchronicity: Oracle of Sun Medicine (2020 Nomadic Press) nominated for the California Book Award poet, is an educator and activist for holism, Black Panther Alum a book called, Story Medicine Woman of Truths. Published in numerous anthologies, most recent release, Black Fire 1 & II, Revolutionary Poets Brigade, Uncommon Ground, Storm Warning City Light's Second Stutter.

Jeanne Powell
Dr. Jeanne Powell has worked as a volunteer barmaid, a weekend staffing coordinator, an airline employee, and a college instructor. She is a published poet and essayist with five books in print. For ten years she hosted Celebration of the Word, a weekly open mic in SF.  She is the founder of Meridien PressWorks, a pioneering micropress.  She continues to host a weekly writing group at Mechanics Institute Library.  Dr. Jeanne has read her poems and flash fiction in bookstores and taverns, in libraries and city parks. She was awarded residencies from SF Writers Grotto and Anaphora Arts.

Idrissa Lattier
Idrissa Lattier is a StorySlam Oakland Star and president of Bright Futures Growth and Development Center, a nonprofit growth and development center serving students from pre-kindergarten through young adulthood.

Kevin Dublin
Kevin Dublin, a San Francisco-based poet and writer, is doing everything he can to keep the city's literary culture alive. He leads a number of writing programs, including the Elder Writing Project, which brings creative writing classes to retirement communities across the Bay Area. He also hosts a community-building reading series, mentors under-resourced kids, spends his summers teaching writing at various youth camps and dreams of founding his own writing youth camp in San Francisco.

JP Frary
JP Frary designs and builds furniture and sculptures, making beautiful things out of recycled materials. His stories can be heard in lumber yards and hardware stores throughout the Bay Area, as well as on KQED. He's a multiple-time Moth Story Slam winner and MC.

Thomas Laymon
Thomas Laymon is a Speakeasy Storyteller, currently residing in Oakland by way of Detroit (The Motor City). He has been engaging audiences from the classroom to comedy clubs for over a decade. His stories aim to find the extra in the ordinary, to note the un-noted, and to mark the unremarked by sharing his "based on a true story” life experience with whoever will lend their ears. Thomas' style blends elements of stand-up comedy, engaging storytelling, and teaching techniques to create a truly unique entertainment experience.

Zorba Jevon Hughes
Zorba Jevon Hughes has been a comedian for more than thirty years. He has performed in venues all over America. He has appeared at The Punchline, Cobbs, Laugh Factory and the Comedy Store. His acerbic esoteric view of life is guaranteed to make you laugh and think. He is known as "the best dressed man in comedy."