Barbara Fant

Barbara Fant has been writing and performing for 14 years. She has represented Columbus, OH in 9 National Poetry Slam competitions. She is a 2008 Rustbelt Champion, 2x Rustbelt Indy Finalist, 7x Grand Slam Champion, and placed 8th out of 96 poets in the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam.

She is a TEDx speaker, a Columbus Makes Art Campaign artist, and was named a 2017 Columbus Alive People to Watch. Her first poetry collection, Paint, Inside Out, was published by Penmanship Books (NYC) in 2010 when she was awarded the Cora Craig Award for Young Authors. She is the author of several chapbooks, the co-author of two stage productions, and has been commissioned by over ten national organizations. Her work has been featured by Button Poetry and Def Poetry Jam, and published in the Academy of American Poets, Electric Literature, Harness Magazine, the McNeese Review, and The Ohio State University Press. Installations of her work can be found in the Columbus Museum of Art, The Columbus Foundation, and Crimson Cup (Easton Town Center).

She has received residencies from Idyllwild Arts in Idyllwild, California and Connect Arts in Havana, Cuba. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a Master of Theology from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio.

The founder of Bloom Barb Fant, LLC., she is a nonprofit consultant and a teaching artist in correctional institutions and schools. Currently, she is the Director of Training and Replication for the Arts for Healing and Justice Network (Los Angeles, CA), an Artist-in-Residence at Harmony Project, a teaching artist at Transit Arts, co-curator of the reading series Paging Columbus, and founder of the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective. Her newest collection of poetry will be released on Sundress Publications in December 2021. Barbara believes in the transformative power of art and considers poetry her ministry.