Meet the Successful Grantseeker

New York

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
6:30-8:00 pm

Presenter Biographies

Esosa Edosomwan
Esosa Edosomwan is an actress/writer/"directress" who has received numerous grants and awards since the beginning of her artistic career to fund her fashion collections, further artistic study, and most recently to fund her films. Some of the grants/awards received include: 2008 Brooklyn Arts ReGrant; 2007 Frances E. Williams Artist Grant; 2003 & 2004 Cornell Council of the Arts Grant for Fashion Design; The Black Fashion Museum Design Competition; Project Excellence/Cornell University Partnership Award (full tuition scholarship); Telluride Association Scholarship (room & board); Avon Goal Model (grant/award), and the Heerman- McCalmon Playwriting Award for her one act play VIVIAN X in 2005.

Her current projects are representing Nigeria in the Miss Africa USA competition, raising funds for her upcoming feature film, One Night in Brooklyn, and starting a non-profit organization affiliated with her work as a holistic health consultant, dedicated to creating optimal health and well being through holistic health education and sustainable garden initiatives in urban communities worldwide. For more info visit: www.sosae.com.

Back to program page.

Sandra Marķa Esteves
Poet and visual artist Sandra Marķa Esteves, known as the Godmother of Nuyorican Poetry, is the first Nuyorican Dominican Boricua woman to publish a volume of poetry in the United States. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Con Tinta Award from the Acentos Poetry Collective, 2007; Poet Honoree from Universes Poetic Theater Ensemble Company, 2006; The Owen Vincent Dodson Memorial Award For Poetry from Blind Beggar Press, 2002; Arts Review Honoree from the Bronx Council on the Arts, 2001; The Edgar Allan Poe Literary Award from the Bronx Historical Society, 1992; and a Poetry Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, 1985, among others.

Sandra was formerly the Executive Director/Producer of the African Caribbean Poetry Theater. As an active arts and poetry advocate, Ms. Esteves has conducted literary programs as Poet in Residence for the New York City Board of Education, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Bronx Council on the Arts, the Caribbean Cultural Center, and El Museo del Barrio, among others. Today, she continues creating art, teaching workshops, presenting poetry readings, producing/directing spoken-word collaborations, and lecturing at universities and cultural centers throughout the United States. In addition to her literary achievements, she is an accomplished visual artist. Her visual artwork along with her publications can be viewed online at www.SandraEsteves.com. She can be reached by e-mail at estevessan@aol.com.

Back to program page.

Tracie Holder
Tracie Holder is the Program Consultant for Women Make Movies' Production Assistance Program. In this capacity she organizes skill building workshops, a Meet the Funder series, and works with fiscally sponsored filmmakers to fine tune their funding proposals, screen rough cuts and provide fundraising advice. Holder is also the co-producer/director and writer of Joe Papp in Five Acts, a co-production with PBS/American Masters. Joe Papp in Five Acts, which is in the final stages of completion, tells the story of New York's indomitable, street-wise champion of the arts who introduced interracial casting to the American stage, created free Shakespeare in the Park, Hair, and A Chorus Line. The film features a glittering Who's Who of stage and screen including actors Kevin Kline, James Earl Jones, Meryl Streep, Olympia Dukakis, Mandy Patinkin, Martin Sheen, Christopher Walken and playwrights Larry Kramer, David Hare, David Rabe, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, and David Henry Hwang.

For this project, Holder has been awarded funding from an array of public and private foundations including: NEA, NEH, NYSCA, NYCH, Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Sulzberger Foundation, CPB, PBS/American Masters, ITVS, and The J.M. Kaplan Fund, among others. Beyond PAPP, Holder is a former board member of New York Women in Film & Television, and Manhattan Neighborhood Network; a guest lecturer for numerous film organizations and universities. Now that PAPP is nearly finished, Holder is looking forward to her next project, UNDY(E)ING, an experimental film about American attitudes towards aging as seen through the prism of grey hair. Outside of filmmaking, Holder is currently completing a Masters of Science in Management at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service.

Back to program page.

Willie Perdomo
Willie Perdomo is the author Where a Nickel Costs a Dime and Smoking Lovely, which received a PEN America Beyond Margins Award. He has also been published in The New York Times Magazine and Bomb. Mr Perdomo's children's book, Visiting Langston, received a Coretta Scott King Honor. He is a New York Foundation for the Arts "Arts Fellowship" winner, Pushcart Prize nominee, an Urban Artists Initiative/NYC grant recipient and was recently a Woolrich Fellow in Creative Writing at Columbia University. He is co-founder/publisher of Cypher Books and is currently Artist-in-Residence, Workspace, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, 2008-2009.

Mitchell Teplitsky
Mitchell Teplitsky is a New York-based documentary filmmaker and marketing consultant. His first feature-length documentary, Soy Andina, about two New Yorkers who return to Peru to reconnect with roots and dance, premiered at Lincoln Center in fall 2007, screened at film festivals nationwide, toured Peru with the U.S. Embassy, and been released on DVD. Mitch raised more than $100,000 from 153 individual donors and Peruvian businesses after being rejected by traditional documentary funding organizations. Before Soy Andina, he was marketing director for the Film Society of Lincoln Center for six years. He earned a B.S. economics from the Wharton School/University of Pennsylvania. Learn more about the film at www.soyandina.com.

Back to program page.