Board

FAYLITA HICKS

BOARD CHAIR

Faylita Hicks is a Grammy-nominated multidisciplinary artist and the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024), a finalist for the 2024 CHIRBy Award for Poetry and Chicago Reader’s Best of 2024, and HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Poetry, and others. They are the winner of the 2020 Sappho Poetry Award and Best of Net Prize for Poetry, the Board Chair of Guild Literary Complex, and a 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Living Legacy Honoree.

Their work has been anthologized in Poemhood: Our Black Revival (Harper Collins, 2024), The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood (UGA Press, 2022), and more. Writing, music, and digital art created by Hicks has been featured in American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Slate, and beyond. Hicks is also the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Art for Justice Fund, Black Mountain Institute, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, the Center for Art and Advocacy, Tin House, and others. Their debut memoir about their carceral experience, A Body of Wild Light (Haymarket Books), is forthcoming.

Eric Charles May

VICE CHAIR

Eric is the author of the novel Bedrock Faith, which was named a Notable African American Title by Publishers Weekly, and a Top Ten Debut Novel for 2014 by Booklist Magazine. A 2015 recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award and a former reporter for The Washington Post, May’s fiction has also appeared in Fish Stories, Solstice, Hypertext, Flyleaf Journal, F, and Criminal Class magazines.

In addition to his Post reporting, his nonfiction has appeared in Sport Literate, Chicago Tribune, and the personal essay anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low Flying Duck.

Jessica Caravallah

BOARD MEMBER

Jessica is a Michigan native and a resident of the north side of Chicago since 2008. After graduating from the University of Michigan, she began her career in Community Affairs at the Chicago Cubs. She has since moved to Ticket Operations, where she works in large-scale event and project management. She earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2022, where she participated in Booth Social Impact as a strategic project manager with the YWCA and as a Board Fellow through the Rustandy Center with Chicago Appleseed.

RACHEL WALERSTEIN

BOARD MEMBER

Rachel is a teacher, writer, and community builder from Central New York. They are passionate about empowering others to co-create the world in which they want to live and work. A teacher by training, Rachel received their Bachelor’s in Education from SUNY Oswego and their PhD in English from the University of Iowa before moving to Chicago. It was in their final teaching role at a for-profit high school here that Rachel realized their focus was no longer in the classroom, but on reimagining the infrastructure intended to support it. Now, they facilitate learning solutions that bring organizations together as a community to solve their most pressing problems and achieve their mission. When not serving as the Senior Learning and Talent Development Manager for AIDS Foundation Chicago, Rachel co-leads the Leadership Institute for Young Nonprofit Professionals, Chicago.