Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry, better known as simply Def Poetry Jam or Def Poetry, is a spoken word poetry television series hosted by Mos Def and airing on HBO between 2002 and 2007. The series features performances by established and up-and-coming spoken word poets. Performances also include special appearances by well-known actors and musicians, as well as occasional performances by Mos Def himself. Co-created by Bruce George, Danny Simmons, Deborah Pointer, Stan Lathan, and Russell Simmons, the show is a spin-off of the popular Def Comedy Jam which began airing on HBO in the 1990s. As with Def Comedy, Simmons appears at the end of every episode to thank the audience.
Andrea Gibson is an American poet and activist from Calais, Maine, who has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1999. Gibson's poetry focuses on gender norms, politics, social reform, and LGBTQ topics.
Kimberly Dark is an American author, professor of sociology, and storyteller.
Virgilia D'Andrea was an Italian anarchist poet and political activist. A prominent free love advocate and noted anti-fascist, she may be best remembered as the author of Tormento (Torment), a book of poetry first published in 1922.
Roxane Gay is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).
Aja Monet, , is an American contemporary poet, writer, lyricist and activist based in Los Angeles, California.
Colleen Hoover is an American author who primarily writes novels in the romance and young adult fiction genres. She is best known for her 2016 romance novel It Ends with Us. Many of her works were self-published before being picked up by a publishing house. As of October 2022, Hoover has sold approximately 20 million books. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
Mark Manson is an American self-help author and blogger.
Jes M. Baker is an American writer, photographer, and activist, best known for being part of the body positive movement. She blogs as The Militant Baker. Her writing focuses on self-image, and topics range from body hair to rape culture. Baker founded the Body Love Conference, which held regional conferences in Arizona in 2014 and 2015.
Bassey Ikpi is a Nigerian-born American spoken-word artist, writer, and mental health advocate. She has appeared on HBO's Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry five times and her poetry has opened shows for Grammy Award-winning artists. She's also the New York Times bestselling author of I'm Telling The Truth But I'm Lying. In 2020 she judged the Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Prize. She also features on the OkayAfrica's 100 Women campaign 2020 honoree list, which celebrates women building infrastructure for future African generations.
I Feel Pretty is a 2018 American comedy film written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. The film stars Amy Schumer, Michelle Williams, Emily Ratajkowski, Rory Scovel, Aidy Bryant, Busy Philipps, Tom Hopper, Naomi Campbell, and Lauren Hutton. The plot involves an insecure woman who, after suffering a head injury, gains extreme self-confidence in her appearance.
Selp-Helf is a book by Colleen Ballinger and her brother Christopher Ballinger, released July 21, 2015 by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It is a parody of the self-help book genre. Simon & Schuster calls it a "decidedly unhelpful, candid, hilarious 'how-to' guide". The book is written in the voice of Colleen Ballinger's YouTube character Miranda Sings and presented in mock-scrapbook format, with silly advice, photos and comically bad artwork.
Sarai Walker is a writer whose book Dietland was identified as one of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best books of 2015, and has subsequently been turned into a TV series. She has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Refinery29. Walker is a fat positive activist and her writings reflect an attempt to reclaim the word fat as a mere bodily description—like tall or short.
Yesika Salgado is an American poet. She is the author of poetry collections Corazón, Tesoro, and Hermosa. She is also a co-founder of the poetry collective Chingona Fire.
Alyesha Wise, aka "Ms. Wise" is a poet, teaching artist and co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement (S.L.A.M). From Camden, N.J., Alyesha currently resides in Los Angeles where she also serves as a teaching artist for Street Poets, Inc. She previously served as the head coach of Da Poetry Lounge's slam team and a co-coach for the Get Lit Youth slam team. Wise co-founded and was a co-host of The Pigeon Presents: The Philadelphia Poetry Slam. She has been featured in a speaking engagement on the TEDx Talk series in which she dedicated the talk to her younger sister and Camden. While in Philadelphia, Wise was a co-host of Jus Words, the longest running weekly open mic in the city at the time. She also founded the organization Love, Us, a Philadelphia-based organization and annual production which worked to spread unity and self-love through the arts. The production was a large attraction in the Philadelphia poetry scene and a Twitter trending topic in 2010. She is currently the founder and organizer of Black Women Necessary, a safe space for black women. Wise also served as a former teaching artist and volunteer coordinator at New Earth, and continues to teach and mentor in Los Angeles youth detention centers. In 2017, she authored the book, Carnival. Ron Howard once said about Alyesha's performance style, "Very Powerful."
Renée Watson is an American teaching artist and author of children's books, best known for her award-winning and New York Times bestselling young adult novel Piecing Me Together, for which she received the John Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Josette Frank Award for fiction. Watson founded the nonprofit I, Too, Arts Collective to provide creative arts programs to the Harlem community.
Jessamyn Stanley is an American yoga teacher and body positivity advocate and writer. She gained recognition through her Instagram posts showing her doing yoga as a "plus-size woman of color," who self-identifies as a "fat femme" and "queer femme." She is the author of the book Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.
Chani Nicholas is a Canadian astrologer and activist.
Lysa TerKeurst is an American speaker and author of Christian non-fiction. She has written more than a dozen books, including the #1 New York Times bestsellersUninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely and Forgiving What You Can't Forget. She is president of Proverbs 31 Ministries.
