(left to right) Julie Enszer, Jen Jack Gieseking, Shawnta Smith-Cruz, Hillary Kolos, Erica Cardwell
Throughout this process, being able to speak to, learn from, and ask questions of people with expertise and in-depth personal experience in lesbian and queer community, as well as filmmaking, has been invaluable.
Each member of the National Advisory Board for All We’ve Got has already played an important role in the film. Some have appeared in front of the camera while others have chatted with me over Skype or a glass of wine. Together, all of them have helped me navigate the ins and outs of the project as it moves along. Importantly, we don’t always agree, and those challenges to my assumptions or tendencies can be invaluable. Whether I decide to shift or remain committed to a specific approach, hearing from trusted friends and advisors forces me to grapple with my choices, which I hope results in a stronger story in the end.
This is my chance to introduce you to a few of those key voices behind the scenes, to thank them for the time they’ve already given to the project, and also give you a picture of who will be part of bringing this project to completion.
I’m very honored to have them on the team and excited for you to meet them.
National Advisory Board
Erica Cardwell is a black queer essayist, culture critic, educator, and 2015 LAMBDA fellow. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The Feminist Wire, Bitch, Hyperallergic, and Ikons Magazine. She will complete her MFA in Nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence in 2016. Erica tweets at @EricaCardwell.
Julie R Enszer, PhD, is a scholar and poet. Her scholarship is at the intersection of U.S. history and literature with particular attention to twentieth century U.S. feminist and lesbian histories, literatures, and cultures. Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in Southern Cultures, Journal of Lesbian Studies, American Periodicals, WSQ, Frontiers, and other journals. Enszer is the author of three collections of poetry, Lilith’s Demons, Sisterhood andHandmade Love . She is also the editor of Milk & Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry and of Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal.
Jen Jack Gieseking, PhD, is an urban cultural geographer, feminist and queer theorist, environmental psychologist, and American Studies scholar. S/he is engaged in research on co-productions of space and identity in digital and material environments, with a focus on sexual and gender identities. Jack’s work pays special attention to how such productions support or inhibit social, spatial, and economic justice. S/he is working on her second book project, Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queer Women, 1983-2008. S/he is Assistant Professor of Public Humanities in American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Jack also writes about her research as a blogger with the Huffington Post Gay Voices. Jack uses both she/her/her’s and he/him/his pronouns.
Hillary Kolos is the Director of Digital Learning at the DreamYard Project in the Bronx, NY. As a graduate student in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, she worked as a research assistant for Project New Media Literacies and researched gaming culture. Hillary graduated from NYU with a BFA in Film/TV. She interned at Maysles Films, Big Mouth Productions, and POV and went on to work on projects for Learning Matters, Aardman Animations, and filmmaker Paul Devlin. In addition, she has consulted for the Pearson and Adobe Foundations and taught after-school classes in several New York City public schools.
Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is a separatist, zinester, archivist, writer, and black-dyke-participant of intentional, community-specific, collective spaces. A coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and collective member of WOW Cafe Theater as producer of women of color theater, namely, Rivers of Honey. Shawn is a Librarian appointed as Assistant Professor at the Graduate Center, CUNY. From (the people’s republic of) Brooklyn, Shawn founded the Queer Housing Nacional List, and has since purchased a home designated for queer women of color (QWOC) with her wife in the Bronx. A board member of Fire & Ink, a national organization for LGBT writers of African descent, and founder of Lambey Press, independently publishing QWOC; Shawn is a co-editor of upcoming special issue of Sinister Wisdom focused on the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.