Starting in 2025, the Boston Writers of Color group will have an annual planning committee, comprised of three BWOC members. The members of this committee will collaborate with GrubStreet’s Artistic Director and other staff on the execution of BWOC programming and events throughout the year, with an emphasis on networking, professional development, and writing opportunities for BIPOC writers. GrubStreet will put out a call toward the end of each year for new members to join on a rotating basis, which will ensure that other BWOC members have an opportunity to contribute.

For this year, we’re excited to announce the following writers as our 2025 BWOC Planning Committee:

Allyn Woodward graduated from the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech where she studied science and technology’s impact on culture. She expanded upon her studies and long-time poetry hobby into a focus and entertainment role on the campus newspaper, the Technique. She took a break from writing while she worked in advertising for 10 years. Now, as a media planning and strategy freelancer, she is seeking to transfer into copywriting while delving into magical realism and fantasy thanks to the Grubstreet classes. She is looking forward to supporting the Programming committee this year.

Yael Valencia Aldana is a Black-Latine poet and writer. She is the author of the poetry collection Black Mestiza (University Press of Kentucky, 2025) and the chapbook Alien(s) from (Bottlecap Press 2023). She is a Pushcart Prize winner, and her work has appeared in numerous national and international publications. She is the Editor in Chief at Purple Ink Press. She teaches creative writing in South Florida, where she lives near the ocean with her family and too many pets. You can find her online at YaelAldana.com and @yaelwrites.

Melissa Michal’s work focuses on her community’s histories and experiences. She is of Seneca, Welsh, and English descent and is a fiction and screenplay writer, essayist, photographer, and a DEI coach and consultant. She currently resides on Narragansett territory. Melissa has work appearing in The Florida Review, Arkana, Yellow Medicine Review, Transmotion, Presumed Incompetent the second edition, and other spaces. Her short story collection, Living Along the Borderlines (2019), out with Feminist Press, was a finalist for the Louise Meriwether first book prize. She has drafted a screenplay adaptation of her story, “The Long Goodbye” from that collection. She writes Indigenous futurism novels and her first novel and essay collection are both finished, with a new serial killer novel in the works.