Bliss is an international playwright, director, producer, actress, poet, journalist, and veteran arts educator. Her work has been showcased globally at prestigious venues such as the United Nations, Off-Broadway, the Edinburgh Festival, Traxx at Union Station, Lincoln Heights Jail, S.P.A.R.C at the Old Jail in Venice, The Last Bookstore, King Eddy Saloon, The Rosenthal Theater at
Inner-City Arts, Casa 0101 Theater, Theatre of Note, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Occidental College, UCSC, UCLA, and the California Institute of Integral Studies, among many others.

Bliss is the playwright behind influential works such as Roots and Wings, Diamonds, Tree of Fire, A Record of Light, Night Flower, and The Joy Ride, which have left a significant impact on both artists and audiences.

She is a featured artist in Kate Crash’s LA Women, Look What She Did, Yahoo News' Shine, and an Emmy-nominated segment on Spotlight Arts: Standup for the Arts.

Bliss has developed curriculum and consulted for organizations including Center Theatre Group, The Geffen Playhouse, the California Arts Council, and the Institute for the Future. She also spent a decade as the producer and host of Pacifica Radio's Think Outside the Cage.

Currently, she just completed her newest work, Realm of the River with an upcoming reading at LATC.

Her groundbreaking trilogy, written by BIPOC femme writers—Matriarch, Women at Work, and Luminous Streets (both a Downtown LA and upcoming Highland Park theatrical tour)—explores women’s survival and the pursuit of justice, and has
received widespread acclaim. Bliss is also a proud mother to her 12-year-old daughter.

Gabriela López de Dennis is an award-winning storyteller—writer, producer, director, actor, visual artist. She has been producing film and theater for over 20 years. She is the founder of the design studio, Soap Studio Inc., and a co-founder and CEO of Lone Stars Entertainment, an independent production company that produces films, videos and web content. Her work with The Roots and Wings Project includes co-producing the Women at Work virtual performance, The Joy Ride mobile, outdoor, multi-disciplinary show, and the Matriarch live and virtual performance. Gabriela was included in Remezcla’s list of “10 Latino Filmmakers You Should Know.” For more information, visit gabrielalopezdedennis.com

Nastassia is a social media and marketing strategist specializing in telling brand stories through digital media. She is most known for her work as founder of Out of Stok where she has amassed a wide-reaching digital presence as a go-to e-commerce vintage furniture retailer and design logistics firm. Nastassia has provided social media and marketing for filmmakers, non-profits, performers and writers including Roger Q.Mason, The Roots and Wings Project, Tree People, Yoga for Youth, among others. 

(they/them) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator who satirizes and revises history to disrupt the biases that separate rather than unite us. Their playwriting has appeared on Broadway; Off/Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Their recent productions have garnered five Barrymore Award nominations in Philadelphia, a Jeff Award Recommendation in Chicago and the San Francisco Chronicle's prestigious Datebook Pick.  Mason's World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as "evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson."  They received 2024's Playwrights' Center McKnight National Playwright Commission, the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant Award, a Hermitage Residency, a Lucille Lortel commission, a Kilroys List nod, and the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award. Mason is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and an alum of the Ma-Yi’s Writing Lab, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, the Fire This Time Festival, and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. They currently produce a memoir/cooking segment on Instagram called Cooking with Q: A Playwright's Guide to Telling My Truth. Previously, they co-hosted the podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and hosted This Way Out Radio's Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage. As an educator, Mason has served as a mentor for Lambda Literary, Workshop Theatre, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are currently on faculty at CalArts. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. 

Evelyn Velador is a 33-year-old teaching artist who brings healing and empowerment into prisons and juvenile halls through the power of writing. Once sentenced to 15 years in , Evelyn now uses her story as living proof of what transformation and second chances can create. Through her workshops, she inspires women and young people to reclaim their voices, embrace resilience, and believe in new beginnings. Evelyn’s mission is to plant seeds of hope wherever she goes and remind others that healing and growth are always possible. Evelyn was a part of The Roots and Wings Project I LOVE MYSELF GOLDEN Writing Program at CIW and is now a writing teaching with our program.