Narrative Power & The Futures We Create: A Community Symposium

In uncertain times, the power of language to shape both the current moment and the world we move into. Narrative Power & The Futures We Create is a community-centered gathering that elevates the ideas, voices, and conversations shaping the literary ecosystem and culture in Dallas and beyond. The symposium will feature a series of short spotlights talks by a handful of writers, thinkers and leaders already hard at work creating the city we’ll share for decades to come, followed by a panel addressing how connection is key to facing the challenges and the opportunities that await.

Symposium Presenters

Texas native Eva Arreguin is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants. She graduated from the UNT for Media Arts in 2016. By early 2017, she became Founding Executive Director of De Colores Collective, an arts based organization focused on connecting with people and celebrating the culture. Eva served as its award-winning podcast host, De Colores Radio. Her work quickly became a hit through her intentionally powerful conversations, innovative approaches, and contagious energy. Her areas of proficiency include: pop culture, anti-racism, community care, media representation, social justice, and fat liberation. She hopes to inspire femmes of color to follow their dreams.

Maya Golden Bethany is an Associated Press-winning, Emmy-nominated journalist. She founded the 1 in 3 Foundation, supporting low-income survivors of sexual trauma. Her memoir, The Return Trip, was re-released in hardcover in 2025 by Rising Action Publishing and Simon & Schuster. Her debut political thriller, The Senator, followed in April 2025. Maya has written for outlets including Newsweek, Salon, and Insider. A Parent Writer Fellow at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, she is a Texas A&M graduate and a member of the Writers’ League of Texas.

Dra. CarolLaine García is a Dominican-American childfree woman with a PhD in organizational psychology who left corporate consulting to teach embodied decolonial leadership while living off assets she built myself with no husband, no inheritance, no venture capital. She is one of one, and teaches from a framework that integrates mind, body, heart, and spirit.

Lisa Huffaker integrates poetry, visual art, and performance in hybrid forms. Her writing appears in The Iowa Review, Georgia Review, Pleiades, Cincinnati Review, Sixth Finch, and many other journals. Pegasus Contemporary Ballet choreographed a new dance work built on her poetry as a live score, and Pierce Planetarium featured her hybrid of poetry, full-dome art projections, and music. In collaboration with the Writer’s Garret, she creates community-engaged writing projects, including Poetry In Place, an ongoing public workshop held along the Trinity River.

Biviana Marín McAfee is a bilingual writer and educator with a passion for language and culture. Before moving to the States, she worked as a reporter in Colombia. She later began a 17 year career with Dallas ISD as a bilingual teacher. After earning a Master’s degree in Spanish Language and Culture, she co-founded Español, la Lengua Amiga, an educational project dedicated to creating engaging content for students learning Spanish as a foreign language. Biviana is the author of seven bilingual books designed for language learners: six illustrated books inspired by the natural world and one exploring the customs and traditions of Spanish-speaking countries.

Bahar Momeni is an award-winning writer, graphic novelist, and creative writing instructor, born and raised in Iran and now based in Dallas. She recently earned her PhD in Literature from the University of Texas at Dallas. Writing in both Farsi and English, she has published across literary and cultural platforms in Iran, Europe, and the United States. Her forthcoming graphic novel, The Trees We Carry, explores identity, displacement, memory, and resistance, bringing together her scholarly interests and creative practice through literary and visual storytelling.

Jaivia Monea is a Dallas-based spoken word artist, author, spiritual guide, and host of the podcast Echos of the Void. She is the author of Walk Between Worlds (2025) and co-founder of Youniversal Services — a platform dedicated to giving artists space to express themselves. Her talks blend poetry, philosophy, and lived experience into soul remembrances that audiences carry long after the room goes quiet. She doesn’t just deliver a message. She offers a moment.

Panelists

Black Ceasar is a poet, author, teacher, filmmaker, and artist, and the newly appointed Dallas Poet Laureate, the third person to hold the post. A Mississippi native, he is now based in Dallas, Texas, having performed with the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, and having received special recognition from Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson. He holds a degree in Education from Texas A&M University at Commerce, and is actively involved in the Gifted & Talented program at Paul Quinn College, an historically black college and university (HBCU) located in Dallas.

Dr. Froswa’ Booker-Drew, CFRE, is a Network Weaver who believes relationships are the key to our personal, professional, and organizational growth. She has been quoted/featured in Forbes, Ozy, Bustle, Huffington Post, Modern Luxury, and other media outlets around the globe. As the President and CEO of Soulstice Consultancy, providing philanthropic guidance, community engagement strategies, leadership coaching, and organizational culture support.

Booker-Drew is an adjunct faculty member in the Master of Public Administration programs at Point Loma Nazarene University and Tulane University and a research affiliate in the Leadership and Change program at Antioch University having taught at University of Texas at Arlington, the University of North Texas at Dallas, Capital Seminary, and Jarvis Christian College. Froswa’ five books include the award-winning, Empowering Charity: A New Narrative of Philanthropy, which has received the silver Nautilus Book Award and the gold Illumination Book Award. Her latest book, Front Porch Wisdom: Navigating Leadership Pressures and Barriers as a Woman of Color, was released in June 2025 by InterVarsity Press, reached the top ten in three categories on Amazon, and was awarded 2026 Outstanding Book of the Year by Illumination Book Awards and the ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award.

Dr. Froswa’ is the co-founder of HERitage Giving Circle, one of the first Black Women Giving Circles in the state of Texas, and co-founder of the South Dallas Employment Project, a collaborative of 200+ organizations to address those impacted by incarceration, and was co-chair of the Sponsoring Committee for the DFW Urban League. She is the recipient of several honors, including the Gertrude Shellburne Humanitarian Award by Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, the 2025 Spirit of SVP (Dallas Social Venture Partners), 2025 Making Democracy Work awardee by the League of Women Voters, 2024 Black Women Give Back Award, and 2023 Texas Women’s Foundation Maura Women Helping Women Awards.  She serves on several boards, including the Board of Governors for the Antioch University System, Vice Chair of ACLU Texas, and as Co-Chair of the Board of For Oak Cliff.  She is the mother of one adult daughter and has a rambunctious grandcat.