Julia McDonald (She/They) is a Maine-based physician, writer, and international humanitarian. McDonald’s writing has appeared in mainstream news media as advocacy for patients and commentary on the intersection of politics and medicine.
Leigh Finnegan-Hosey is a spiritual care provider with experience working in both higher education and health care settings. She currently serves as the pediatric and reproductive health chaplain for a large academic medical center.
Chidube Nkiruka (1976–2024) was a Listener Poet whose work reflected his deep commitment to healing and justice. His fascination with rhythm and poetry was connected to its capacity to birth resilience, resistance, and recovery amidst those suffering from neglect, abuse, and addiction.
Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places.
Chanice Withers is an educator, poet, and proud graduate of the Certified Listener Poet program. A natural-born teacher, she shares her gift with the community through her monthly workshop, Poetry in the Park—a space for connection, creativity, and healing.
Avni Vyas is a poet and professor living in Florida. She is the author of Little God (Burrow Press, 2021) and the chapbooks Far From Glorious Feeling (TOA, 2021) and When I Was a Barefoot Cloud (Anhinga, 2024).
Latasha Drax is a self-published poet and writer from Brooklyn, New York. She uses her poetic voice for creative expression, advocacy, and awareness of social injustices.
D'ete Blackshire is a facilitator and artist with a calling to create healing spaces that offer opportunities for transmuting struggle into seeds of hope.
Joseph M. Jablonski is a typewriting street poet in addition to being a Listener Poet of The Good Listening Project. As a street poet, he entertains as the “Walking Mall Poet” on the downtown pedestrian mall of Winchester, Virginia and beyond.
Zina Mercil is a lover of people, connection, compassion, words, artistic expression, and life. In her roles she specializes in increasing personal awareness, growth, and performance while decreasing burnout and health consequences.
Mindy Shah grew up near the shores of Lake Erie, in Ohio, and spent much of her childhood tramping around the woods and writing stories she seldom finished.
Katherine Gekker is the author of In Search of Warm Breathing Things (Glass Lyre Press, 2019); her poems have also appeared in Little Patuxent Review, Delmarva Review, Broadkill Review, Apple Valley Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Kay McKean co-founded The Good Listening Project after working with leadership teams across industries to build trust and psychological safety in workplace cultures.
Elizabeth Pringle explores language and the human experience through theatre and film, arts and media education, leadership coaching, and professional development.
Yvette Perry is a lover of music and books, an amateur photographer, a collector of antique typewriters, and one fourth of a Marvel Cinematic Universe household that includes her husband and twin daughters.
Beck Klassen is a writer and current student of Arts & Sciences at McMaster University (Class of ‘23). Beck became The Good Listening Project's first Listener Poet in 2018 when they helped pilot the program at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington DC.
Frankie Abralind began experimenting with this work when he was lead designer at Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital's Innovation Hub. For years on the weekends, he'd been listening to and writing poems for strangers on the streets of Washington, D.C.
