2021 San Diego Writers Festival Kicks Off with Spoken Word from Gill Sotu

Join us as we officially launch the 2021 San Diego Writers Festival with a celebration of words—spoken, written, and performed! After a brief welcome from festival cofounders, Marni Freedman and Jeniffer Thompson, we will start things off with beloved spoken word artist, Gill Sotu, who, along with teen poet laureates, Marissa Michel and Sasa Aakil, and award-winning poet and author, Tania Pryputniewicz will speak to our 2021 Theme: What the World Needs Now. We will also announce a series of book giveaways from some of our notable 2021 speakers. Come soak up the excitement, get inspired, discover what we have in store, and enter to win a book!

Spoken word poet and artist in residence with the Jacobs Center, Gill Sotu, along with teen poet laureates speak to our 2021 Theme: What the World Needs Now.

Event Sponsor: Kathy Pease, author of Don’t Let the Kids Bite the Dog and a generous sponsor of our KidsWrite! program

Meet the Speakers

Gill Sotu is a multi-faceted artist weaving poetry, music, soul, humor, and thought provoking passion into captivating and memorable performances. He is a two time Grand Slam Poetry Champion, two time Raw Performing artist of the year, and a three time TEDx San Diego presenter. He has opened for rap legend Talib Kweli at the San Diego Symphony. Currently he is a teaching artist and a commissioned playwright with The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego as well as the Artist In Residence at Makers Church. He has been commissioned to produce original pieces for leading arts and community organizations such as: The San Diego Symphony, San Diego Fashion Week, The Unity Way of San Diego County, Feeding America, SD Fringe Fest, and the San Diego Museum of Man to name a few. A magnetic performer, Sotu uses his words and energy to bring stories to life on stage and screen and leaves audiences of all sizes entertained and inspired.

Jeniffer Thompson is an author branding expert, publishing consultant, and founder of Monkey C Media. MCM specializes in author websites, award-winning book cover design, book trailers, and digital marketing tools to help authors sell more books. She is a co-founder of the San Diego Writers Festival, serves on the board of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association, and is the host of the Premise Podcast. Visit MonkeyCMedia.com and listen to The Premise podcast and learn more about Jeniffer’s personal branding at her website, JenifferThompson.com.

Marni Freedman (BFA, LMFT) is a screenwriter, playwright, award-winning author, writing coach, and co-founder of the San Diego Writers Festival. After graduating from USC film school, Marni began her career bringing her play, “Two Goldsteins on Acid” to the stage, after which it was made into the film, “Playing Mona Lisa,” produced by Disney. She co-authored the play, A Jewish Joke, about a 1950s comedy writer facing the Hollywood Blacklist, which won the NY Solo Show for best drama, critics’ choice for the San Diego Union-Tribune, and was recently produced Off-Broadway. Marni leads the Memoir Certificate Program for San Diego Writers, Ink, produces the San Diego Memoir Writers Association’s theatrical Memoir Showcase, and is an editor of Shaking the Tree: short. brazen. memoir. She is also a writing coach and a therapist for artists and writers. Her first book, 7 Essential Writing Tools: That Will Absolutely Make Your Writing Better (And Enliven Your Soul) is an Amazon Bestseller. Her second award-winning book is Permission to Roar: For Female Thought Leaders Ready to Write their Book. You can find Marni at www.marnifreedman.com, a writing hub to help writers find their authentic voice.

Sasa Aakil is an 18 year old multi-media artist, writer, and the 2021 Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate. She is a co-author of I Am The Night Sky and Other Reflections by Muslim American Youth and the artist behind the A Man Was Lynched Yesterday Project. Sasa is also a brown belt in Tung Su Do and a frequent maker of mistakes.

Marissa Michel served as the 2020 Prince George’s County Youth Poet Laureate. She is the recipient of multiple national gold medals for poetry in the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards. Marissa was also a 2020 American Voice Nominee, and the 2020 Diaz-Mattison Poetry Prize recipient. Her newest works can be found in The Rising Phoenix Review, the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, Love Letters To the Mothers and Fathers of the African Diaspora, and elsewhere. More information about her can be found on www.marissamichel.com.

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Tania Pryputniewicz is the author of the poetry collection November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014) and Heart’s Compass Tarot (Two Fine Crows Books, 2021). Recent poems appeared in America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, Borderless / Bilingual, NILVX: A Book of Magic (Tarot Series), Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin and are forthcoming at Juked. She teaches poetry and tarot-inspired writing classes at San Diego Writers, Ink and Antioch University’s Continuing Education program. Tania lives in Coronado, California with her husband, three children, one blue-eyed Husky, and a formerly feral cat named Luna. Her online home is: www.taniapryputniewicz.com

Marjha Paulino originates from Tuxtepec, Oaxaca México and currently resides in the city of Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. Her first poetry collection, Adopté un sol en la tierra, ( I Adopted a Sun in the Land), was published by the editorial press El Principio del Caos, located in Leon, Gto. Her work also appears in a collection titled Las Avenidas del Cielo (2018), a collaborative publication between the University of Aguascalientes and the University of Guanajuato; and one of her poems is part of the San Diego Poetry Annual Fractal (2020-2021). Paulino’s forthcoming book, CUENCA, will be published this year by the Instituto Cultural de Leon. In 2020 she won the Programa de Estímulos a la Creación y Desarrollo Artístico (Program for Artistic Creation and Development) of Guanajuato in the poetry category in 2020. Marjha is co-founder of Bilingual/Borderless with poet and translator Corinne Stanley, where she translates poetry from English to Spanish.