Zedeka Poindexter and Gina Tranisi are co-executive directors of the Nebraska Writers Collective. NWC is responsible for the annual All Writes Reserved Youth Spoken Word Festival, formerly known as Louder Than a Bomb, which reaches more than 30 schools and 500 students across Nebraska and Iowa with free spoken word poetry lessons, workshops with local writers, open mics, and a space to be heard.

NWC will also host National Youth Poet Laureate Stephanie Pacheco for a performance on Oct. 12 at Dry Spokes, located at 19th and Leavenworth.

Zedeka Poindexter is a North Omaha-born writer and performer with a background in management and communications. She holds a bachelor's degree in communication from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Poindexter has built a historical record through poems and essays that draw on physical senses to connect with readers and listeners. Before assuming her current role, she spent ten years with the NWC as a teaching artist.

Gina Tranisi is a leader, educator, and poet who has competed at both the National Poetry Slam and the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. She holds a bachelor's and master's degree in English with a specialization in Women's and Gender Studies from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. An alum of the Nebraska Writers Collective's youth poetry programming, Tranisi has served as a teaching artist and, most recently, an Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program certified instructor, and the organization's full-time program director.

In this episode, Poindexter and Tranisi are in conversation with Michael Griffin about the basics of writing poetry, the value of expressing lived experiences through art, and the past and future of the Nebraska Writers Collective.