May Speaker: Katelyn Durst
Katelyn Durst is a poet, community artist, creative activist, teacher and youth worker. Katelyn hails from the northern coast of the Great Lake State. She has worked within urban youth development and urban community development for ten years in cities such as Chicago, Denver, DC, LA, Seattle and Flint (MI) . Additionally, she has taught poetry for six years and recently conducted poetry therapy workshops at a youth psychiatric hospital and Freedom Schools summer programming in a workshop focused on healing from the unjust deaths of youth of color
Katelyn is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Urban Studies and Community Arts from Eastern University. This program focuses on trauma-informed art-making to build sustainable and transformative resiliency within urban/inner-city and displaced communities. As an artist-in-residence with Flint Public Art Project, she is developing a narrative community arts project that will give voice to family stories as they process and grow through the current state of the water crisis. She continues to work as a poetry teacher and is additionally developing a food literacy curriculum for Flint schools.
Her poems have appeared in Controlled Burn, The Lightkeeper, Deep Fried Poetry, The Offbeat, Teen Ink, New Poetry Magazine and are forthcoming in Tayo Literary Magazine and the Primal School Blog. In her spare time, Katelyn She dreams of her next great adventure and becoming an urban beekeeper.
Check out one of her poems on The Mudroom!
Katelyn Durst is a community artist, creative activist, teacher and youth worker. She has worked within urban youth development and urban community development for ten years and has taught poetry for six years, recently conducting poetry therapy workshops at a youth psychiatric hospital and Freedom Schools summer programming in a workshop focused on healing from the unjust deaths of youth of color. Katelyn is currently pursuing a master’s in Urban Studies and Community Arts from Eastern University with a focus on trauma-informed art-making to build sustainable and transformative resiliency within urban/inner-city and displaced communities. In her spare time, she dreams of becoming an urban beekeeper. She is a poet-in-residence at 
Lina AbuJamra is a Pediatric ER doctor and founder of Living with Power Ministries. Her deepest desire is to help people live with power by connecting Biblical answers to everyday life. Though Lina still practices medicine, she spends the majority of her time speaking and writing providing Biblical truth for every day life. She has authored 
Deeply Rooted 