Shasparay .

Shasparay (First Wave alumna) (she/they) is a Black, fat and queer performing artist who is the Founder and Artistic Director of the annual Black Arts Matter Festival and was the 2022 4th Ranked Woman Slam Poet in the World (W.OW.P.S). Recently featured in the New York Times, Shasparay is a current graduate student pursuing an MA in Arts and Creative Enterprise Leadership at the Wisconsin School of Business Bolz Center and holds a B.S. in Theatre from UW-Madison. She was a recipient of the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Full Tuition Scholarship, a speaker at the 2016 TEDxYouth Austin conference, and is a National NAACP ACT-SO Gold Medalist. Shasparay has been a finalist in national and regional slam competitions such as Women of the World Poetry Slam, Stone Wall International Poetry Slam, Southern Fried Poetry Slam, Texas Grand Slam, and is a two-time Lip Stick Wars Poetry Slam Champion.  She has been featured on platforms such as Button Poetry, Huffington Post, Youth Speaks, Buzzfeed and is a cast member of the award-winning horror anthology podcast Old Gods of Appalachia.