Multiple creatives will give short, 7-minute talks this month. Chosen from an array of applications, we've got:

Celeste Lawson

Celeste Lawson has been active in the cultural arts community for more than 40 years working in various arenas and leaderhship capacities ranging from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Buffalo State College Performing Arts Center to Buffalo City Ballet among other Buffalo-based arts organizations. Celeste is an arts administrator who has represented WNY's arts and cultural community across the country and internationally from the corridors of the State capitol in Albany, to the halls of Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. and the White House; to towns in Vienna, Austria, Moucron, Belgium, and Lille, France, to being a delegate to the United Nations/NGO Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, chaired by Hillary Rodam Clinton. She is a working artist whose projects have been supported by grants and awards from the MAP Fund, New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist grants, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The David Fendrick Theatre Fund, SCR grants through ASI, and New York State Council on the Arts Community Arts also administered by ASI, among others. She is an alum of Leadership Buffalo and is outrageously proud and devoted to the arts and cultural community in Buffalo and Western New York.

J.B. Stone

J.B. Stone (he/they) is a Neurodivergent/Autistic Multidisciplinary writer, teaching artist, and critic from Brooklyn, NY and residing in Buffalo, NY. They’re the founding EIC at Variety Pack. Nominated for the Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net, J.B.’s prose and poetry has appeared in The Citron Review, The Talon Review, The McNeese Review, Hawaii-Pacific Review, The Colorado Review, Rain Taxi, Button Poetry, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, X-R-A-Y, Flash Fiction Magazine, other spaces. J.B. has also been a fixture in the spoken word poetry community, representing Buffalo five times, at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam Festival, one of the longest-running and largest Poetry Slams in the world, representing Pure Ink Poetry. As a teaching artist, they’ve run workshops and lectures with the Buffalo Central Library, Just Buffalo Literary Center, Academy of Human Rights & Genocide Studies’ Summer Institute, and Accessible Academics

Kimera Lattimore

Kimera Lattimore is an eclectic messenger love with a degree in theology and an intense love for people. She's a Music Professor at Villa Maria College, as well as a musician, songwriter, and worship leader who’s toured the world with various national recording artists such as Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary, James Fortune, and many more. Kimera is also a vocal producer who’s done vocal stems for artist such as Sunshine Anderson, Teddy Riley, and Taylor Swift. Due to her creative nature, in 2021 Kimera founded “Thy Kingdom Era collective” a mobile collective for youth and young adult creatives to incubate and evolve their God given gifts. Kimera is the upcoming author of her first book “Damp Sidewalks” A deep dive into the trauma in our lives and how God longs to heal them. Kimera is most known for her congenial personality, her passion for the youth, her multifaceted creativity, and her love for the rejected.

Wonderbrink Breakfasts

Breakfast is a full-production morning event built around a curation of creative voices on second Fridays. The program includes a shared meal, a talk, and time for listening and reflection. It’s designed for people who want to start their day with focus and a clear idea to carry with them. As always, the whole family is welcome. Bring your own mug to reduce event waste. And let us know on the RSVP form how we may better enable your attendance.