2010 VERVE Recipients

ANDREA JENKINS is a poet, writer and multimedia visual and performance artist. She has been a part of the local poetry community for several years, earning awards, fellowships and commissions during that time. She currently works full time as a Senior Policy Aide to the 8th Ward City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden and serves on the boards of OutFront Minnesota, Forecast Public Art, and SMARTS. She has one beautiful daughter, Nia, and an equally beautiful granddaughter, Aniyah. Andrea co-curates the Queer Voices Reading Series with John Medeiros at Intermedia Arts. Most recently Andrea was selected to be a Naked Stages Fellow, supported by the Jerome Foundation, to produce a one-woman show loosely based on her manuscript Black Pearl.

CYNTHIA FRENCH received her MFA in Writing from Hamline University. She has been working as a teacher, performer and event organizer in the Twin Cities spoken word community for over 12 years. Her career thus far has involved being a member of multiple poetry slam teams, coordinating the 2002 National Poetry Slam in Minneapolis, touring nationally and internationally, and developing multiple spoken word series. She was the 2010 Minneapolis Women's Poetry Slam Champion and the 2006 Minneapolis Grand Slam Champion. Her poetry was included in the spoken word anthology, Spoken Word Revolution Redux. She is utilizing the VERVE grant to help her transition into full time work as an artist by developing a web site and marketing tools to promote herself as a performer and teacher.

THADRA SHERIDAN is a spoken word artist, promoter and teacher from Minneapolis, MN. She has performed all over the country in venues ranging from bars, coffee houses, and art galleries, to large theatres, like the State in Minneapolis, the Fitzgerald in St. Paul, and the Paramount in Seattle. She has been published in the Star and Tribune, the Skyway News, and Moxie Magazine, and has won awards for her writing from the Faulkner Society and the National League of American Pen Women. She has been a member of three Minnesota Slam Teams, winning the MN Grand Slam in 2002, has coached 2 teams for the Midwest Slam League, and won the first ever all-female Redhots Slam in LA in March of 2004. Since moving to California, she competed on the 2006 San Francisco Slam Team, which placed 6th in the nation that year and secured another number 6 the following year coaching the renowned Berkeley Slam Team. She recently taped for the 2005 season of HBO's Def Poetry and brought down the house at the first ever poetry slam at San Quentin penitentiary. She has a bachelor's degree in theater, and a background in film, stand up comedy, and acting. She has run 2 monthly shows in Minneapolis, was on the planning board for the 2002 National Poetry Slam, coordinates a slam residency program in twin cities high schools and community centers, co-organizes a slam program in local colleges, and organized the 2002 Op-Ed slam, sponsored by the National Writer's Union. She has taught performance poetry in high schools, colleges, and art centers across the country, has toured extensively through the West Coast and the Midwest, and has produced several large spoken word events throughout the Twin Cities. Her work is vicious, hilarious, and blunt. “At alternate turns, Sheridan is a feminist, activist, memoirist, humorist, satirist, and blasphemist. She is also an emerging local star among performance poets.” The St. Paul Pioneer Press

ALICE SHINDELAR is a fresh voice in the Twin Cities spoken word community, who is already turning many heads with her bold wordplay, strong subject matter and deceptively coy delivery. Alice is also a filmmaker and aspiring screenwriter. She attended Perpich Center for the Arts Education for literary arts during her junior and senior year of high school and graduated from the University of Minnesota, Morris with a degree in French and Film Studies. She began performing at slams and open mics around the Twin Cities in 2008 and is a regular at the all-woman's slam, Punch Out Poetry. Alice hosts a bi-weekly workshop called Talk Story Salon for poets, storytellers, emcees, and performance based writers of all kinds and is a volunteer editor for the erotica magazine Whole Beast Rag. For more information on Alice Shindelar, please visit her website.

JEFFREY SKEMP was raised on a farm in western Wisconsin. As a writer, performer and photographer Jeffrey has been involved in various artistic endeavors within the Twin Cities since the early 1990's. Currently, he is a member of the Bosso Poetry Company, a diverse collective of poets and musicians. He is also honored to be the recipient of the 2010 Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation. His debut spoken word album "Spent" is forthcoming in early 2011.

M. COCHISE ANDERSON, from the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations of Oklahoma, is a professional actor, playwright, spoken word performance artist, storyteller, traditional Native and blues musician and Native American cultural arts educator. He has presented his one-man performances at the Open House Arts Festival at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Art in Washington DC, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC and New York City and as a performer and as guest M.C. at the Lincoln Center “Outdoor Series – La Casita,” in NYC. He teaches creative writing, storytelling and performance within various Native American communities across the country. Mostly recently Cochise taught at the Oneida Nation Tribal High School in Greenbay, WI and at the Anishinabe Academy in Minneapolis. Cochise will be using the Verve Grant to write a new multimedia performance piece, METHODS OF MASS DECEPTION, based on his spoken word track, that can be heard at www.RavingNativeRadio.com. He will then be incorporating the Naked Stages Fellowship he recently received to collaborate with other artists, Native and non-Native, in premiering this new, autonomous and vital spoken word performance piece.