Phyllis Marie Bowdwin, a Bronx-born artist, jewelry designer and griot, captures her people's stories through her writing and her art. She was a Teacher Trainer for the New York City Department of Education, Crisis Intervention Counselor for the Marble Collegiate Church, and Coordinator of Daytime Casting at ABC. Her Middle Passage Maafa brooch was featured in the Styles section of The New York Times, exhibited at the New York Historical Society and acquired for the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. She holds a B.A. from The New School and an M.A. in Education from Adelphi University. A 2013 BRIO award winner for literature, her short stories have been published in the Bronx Memoir Project and the UFT's Reflections Magazine. As a volunteer at the Neighborhood Women's Collective, she mentors and conducts life skills workshops for women and girls. Known as the Bronx Pickle, the Quiet Fire, and that nosy, trouble making #$%@&*, Phyllis is currently completing her first volume of short stories.