2020 Conference Keynote Session

The session will be recorded and streamed to social media after the event. If you have any accessibility needs, or questions, please email conference@crossingborders20.com for service. Because of internet trolls registration is required to attend live.

Register to attend the keynote session

 

Awardee: Lou Stovall

Artist Lou Stovall created prints for Jacob Lawrence, Josef Alber, Sam Gilliam, Gene Davis, Alexander Calder, and many, many more. Over a 40 year career he also trained a generation of printmakers in the studio he founded with his wife, Di Stovall. Now managed in part by their son, Workshop Inc is one small part of Lou Stovall’s significant legacy of service to the arts.

Image of Lou Stovall working in his studio (c) Carol Harrison, used by permission
Image of Lou Stovall with Jacob Lawrence (c) Carol Harrison, used by permission
Lou Stovall in his workshop, image (c) Carol Harrison

Keynote Speaker Bios

Keynote Speaker: Michael Bolden

Michael Bolden is managing director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University. Previously, Bolden served as the first editorial director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a leading funder of the arts and journalism in the United States. For 13 years, he worked at The Washington Post, where he led the award-winning transportation and development reporting team and worked as an editor for The Washington Post Magazine and the Style and Sunday Arts sections. He serves on the board of directors of the SPJ Foundation, the nonprofit that supports a free press and the educational mission of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a head judge for the Online Journalism Awards and a juror for the Fact-Checking Innovation Initiative.

Keynote Speaker: Maura Judkis

Maura Judkis is a reporter for the Washington Post, covering culture, food and the arts. She is a 2018 James Beard Award winner whose work has been honored by the Association of Food Journalists and the Virginia Press Association. Maura has appeared on local and international TV and radio, including MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and Al Jazeera. She is a 2007 graduate of the George Washington University, and a 2011 arts journalism fellow with the National Endowment for the Arts and the University of Southern California. She has also written for U.S. News & World Report, TBD.com, ARTnews, the Washington City Paper, and the Onion A.V. Club..

Keynote Speaker: Ebone Bell

Ebone Bell is the founder and publisher of Tagg Magazine. Tagg Magazine was created to serve “Everything lesbian, queer and under the rainbow” to provide the community with a central source for lesbian and queer culture, news and events. Tagg is an innovative, magazine, website and podcast reaching thousands of LGBTQ people across the country. Tagg’s diverse readers—from young professionals to those with established families— recognize the strong need for more coverage of LGBTQ content. Tagg’s mission is to spotlight lesbian, queer, transgender, and bisexual individuals across the country, as well as bring our community together. Tagg is for our community.

Keynote Speaker: Carolina Miranda

Carolina A. Miranda is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where she covers culture, with a focus on art and architecture. This includes in-depth reports on the intersection of art and race, innovations by Pritzker Prize-winning architects, developments in international film, and issues of art and gentrification in Los Angeles. Prior to joining The Times, she was an independent magazine writer and radio reporter producing cultural stories for Time, ARTnews, Architect, Art in America, Fast Company, NPR’s All Things Considered and PRI’s Studio 360. Miranda is winner of the 2017 Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism, and served as founding co-chair of the Los Angeles Times Guild, the first employee union in the publication’s nearly 140 years in existence, and currently serves as an at-large officer.

Keynote Speaker: Paul Schmelzer

Paul Schmelzer is a Minneapolis-based writer and editor. From 1998 to 2007, he was associate director of marketing at the Walker, and from 2011 to 2020, he was editor of Walker Reader. Focused on the intersection of art, media, and social change, he’s written for publications including Adbusters (where he was associate editor from 2003 to 2005), Artforum.com, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, The Progressive, Raw Vision, and Utne Reader, among others. As founding editor of Walker Reader, he conceived of key publishing efforts including Artist Op-Eds, Soundboard, and The Year According To. He was lead organizer and co-emcee of the 2015 Walker conference Superscript: Arts Journalism and Criticism in a Digital Age. Former editor of the Minnesota Independent (2008–2011) and managing editor of its DC-based nonprofit parent, the American Independent News Network (2009–2011), he’s the first online journalist in state history to win either a Frank Premack Award for Public Affairs Journalism (2008) or a Society of Professional Journalists Page One Award (2007). He was a member of the 2019 cohort of the Wilder Foundation’s James P. Shannon Leadership Institute and, with writer/curator Nicole J. Caruth, won a 2019 arts writers grant from Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation.

Keynote Speaker: Soraya McDonald

Soraya McDonald is the cultural critic for The Undefeated, ESPN’s platform covering race, sports, and culture, where she writes about film, television, and the arts. She is the 2020 winner of the George Jean Nathan prize for dramatic criticism, a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, and the runner-up for the 2019 Vernon Jarrett Medal for outstanding reporting on Black life.