Ella Turenne is an artist, activist and educator. Her work has been published in various anthologies including Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out, Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (nominated for a 2007 NAACP Image Award) and Woman’s Work: The Short Stories. She is the editor of a volume of visual art and poetry commemorating the Haitian revolution entitled "revolution|revolisyon|révolution 1804-2004: An Artistic Commemoration of the Haitian Revolution." Ella is also a filmmaker whose work has been an official selection of various national film festivals including the Hollywood Black Film Festival and the Montréal International Haitian Film Festival, where her short film "woodshed" was nominated for Best Short Film. In response to the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Ella co-edited a volume of poetry on Haiti called “For the Crowns of Your Heads”; the funds raised were used to aid a library that was destroyed in Port-au-Prince.

As an activist, she is an advisory board member of the Blackout Arts Collective, a grassroots organization whose mission is to empower communities of color through arts, education and activism. With Blackout, Ella participated in Lyrics on Lockdown, a national tour where she performed and facilitated workshops educating communities about the prison-industrial complex. She is also co-founder of SistaPAC Productions, whose mission is to develop original creative works from women of color. Ella is currently Assistant Dean for Community Engagement at Occidental College in Los Angeles. For more, visit www.blackwomyn.com.

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