Viva Ruiz is a community educated artist and advocate, and a descendant of factory-working Ecuadorian migrants raised in Jamaica, Queens. They are a maker working in performance, film, writing, music, and dance with a collaborative practice grown out of their experience in NYC nightlife. Their original telenovelas have been shown at festivals and art spaces such as Mix NYC, Outfest LA, Deitch Projects, PS1 Moma, and Futura in Prague. Her short film Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution, a Visual AIDS commission, premiered for the 30th annual Day With(out) Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2019. Ruiz founded the Thank God for Abortion initiative in 2015, an ongoing awareness-raising project with multiple manifestations. In 2019 Ruiz’s solo exhibition “Pro Abortion Shakira : A TGFA Introspective” was shown at Participant Inc, and became the first artist awarded a residency from the pro-abortion cultural organization Shout Your Abortion. In 2020 Ruiz directed the TGFA Anthem music video. They are a member of the Carribbean queer party/artist collective, RAGGA NYC. In 2020 Ruiz was a part of In Plain Sight, a coalition of 80 artists fighting immigrant detention and the culture of incarceration conceived of by Cassils and rafa esparza, and authored the phrase ARREST ICE that was skywritten over NYC ICE offices.

Johanna Fateman is a writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the post-punkrock band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson. Fateman began her writing career producing zines including My Need To Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock; ArtaudMania!!! The Diary of a Fan; The Opposite, Part I; and SNARLA, which she co-wrote with Miranda July. It was through her zines that Fateman first met bandmate Kathleen Hanna. Beginning in 2016, Fateman became a columnist for The New Yorker, regularly contributing to the magazine’s “Goings On About Town” section. Fateman has also written critically about art and pop culture for Bookforum, Artforum, and 4Columns.

Amanda Nadelberg is the author of three books, most recently Songs from a Mountain (Coffee House Press, 2016). Her work has been widely published in Harper’s, The Nation, and SFMOMA’s Open Space, among other places. A recipient of a fellowship from Yaddo, she lives in Oakland.

Janie Heath has been published in Big Bridge, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Boog City, Brink, Phase Zero, and Whiskey Tit. An essay she wrote appears in the liner notes for the box set, G Stands for Go-Betweens Volume II. Her curatorial residency at Howl! Happening is archived on video as Janie Heath &Friends. She worked as a reporter for her hometown daily newspaper before moving to New York in the mid-1970s to get her BFA in Film Production at New York University. She worked on movies–Times Square and Maniac—before her love of music led her to live in a London squat until she landed a job with an indie record label. She now lives in New York and has completed a novel, Pollyanna Goes to Hell. Recent portrait by Julia Gorton.

Dixon Place literary events are made possible, in part, with support from Axe-Houghton Foundation.