a storytelling incubator for women and nonbinary people of color to rest + create.

a storytelling incubator for women and nonbinary people of color to rest + create.

We host this retreat as an intentional space to empower, equip and enable voices of change. Our stories hold a deep transformational power; a power we believe must be nurtured & developed in community. We are deeply grateful to those who come before us and who are beside us - the activists, the writers, the artists, the creatives, the union members and strikers who have endured so much in the pursuit of a new world. Documenting our stories, that have so often been repressed, co-opted and misunderstood is crucial for our collective liberation.

Applications for Compose Volume II are closed.

Meet the 2023 Mentors

Evelyn Ngugi

Lena Felton

Amber Payne

Maya Perez

  • From educational content at PBS Digital Studios to vlog-style videos on her personal YouTube channel, Evelyn uses comedy to inject silliness into more serious, relatable issues.

    A writer at heart and performer by birth chart 🦁, Evelyn built a following of 240K ""Internet Cousins"" and continues to engage with them via her online persona Evelyn From The Internets.

  • A television producer and screenwriter, Maya Perez was most recently a co-producer on the Untitled Joshua Jackson & Lauren Ridloff Project for Starz. Prior to that, she worked on Showtime’s American Rust S2 as an executive story editor. Maya was an executive producer on the television series On Story on PBS for eleven seasons. Nominated for two Lone Star EMMY Awards®, On Story won a Lone Star EMMY Award® for Best Interview/Discussion Program Series in 2018, for the episode ""Arrival: A Conversation with Eric Heisserer,"" and for Best Arts/Entertainment Program in 2014, for the episode ""Breaking Bad: A Conversation with Vince Gilligan."" Her screenplays have been optioned for film and recognized by fellowships from SFFILM/Westridge, Sundance Institute, and NY Stage & Film.

    Maya's short stories and essays have been published in Texas Monthly, American Short Fiction, Joyland, Electric Lit, and more. In addition, she co-edited three collections of interviews with filmmakers published by the University of Texas Press: On Story — Screenwriters and Their Craft (2013), On Story — Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films (2016), and On Story — The Golden Ages of Television (October 2018).

    Maya received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA as a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers. Maya grew up in Kenya, Zambia, and the United States."

  • Lena Felton is Director of Special Projects at POPSUGAR, where she coordinates high-impact packages and features across all verticals: Entertainment, Wellness, Beauty, and Fashion. She leads the site’s identity coverage, focusing on voices typically underrepresented in mainstream media. Before joining POPSUGAR in 2022, she worked at The Washington Post for five years, getting her start as an editor at The Lily and eventually leading a team within the Features department that covered issues of gender and identity. Previously, she was a Politics Fellow at The Atlantic, and she graduated from Harvard in 2017. She’s a proud California native, so, after 10 years on the East Coast, she's happy to be based in San Francisco.

  • Amber Payne is an award-winning journalist, executive producer, editor and storyteller with a track record for creating bold content that drives conversation.

    Before assuming the role of Publisher/GM, Amber was the founding co-editor in chief of The Emancipator, a multimedia digital publication reimagining the first abolitionist newspapers for a new day. The Emancipator explains and amplifies solutions to structural racism, featuring critical voices, ideas, debates and evidence-based commentary.

    Amber was a 2021 Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University. Amber led daily editorial and video strategy as managing editor of BET.com and served as Executive Producer of Teen Vogue and Them., creating scalable digital content for Condé Nast Entertainment, while maintaining brand integrity. In 2015 Amber launched NBCBLK, a section of NBCNews.com dedicated to elevating the conversation around black identity, social issues, and culture.

    Amber spent a decade at NBC Nightly News where she did all the jobs and worked her way up to producing breaking news and feature stories. She has covered stories throughout the U.S. and the UK, Ecuador and parts of West Africa and South Africa and was a field producer for special reports including the 70th Anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, The Royal Wedding, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Hurricane Katrina recovery.

    Amber is a graduate of the University of Virginia where she majored in Studio Art and Media Studies. She and her husband also run Tilt Shift Media, a small production company focused on documentaries and narrative-driven branded content.

Meet the 2023 Cohort

“Being a part of this community felt like I had been holding my breath, and I finally got the chance to exhale.

Read Victoria Abrams’ full article on her experience at Compose in 2022 in Austin Woman Magazine.