Founder & Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks – an arts & culture nonprofit based in  Saint Paul, MN – Tish Jones is a poet, educator, cultural strategist and cultural  producer from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has performed poetry in venues  throughout the United States. Her work can be found in A Moment of Silence (Tru  Ruts and The Playwrights Center, 2020), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s  anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015) and more. 

Currently a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Fund and Waterers Future  Building recipient, she has been awarded fellowships from the Arts Matters  Foundation, Springboard for the Arts, the Intercultural Leadership Institute, and  more. Former Director of the Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam  festival, her work explores the ways in which art can function as a tool for social  transformation, liberation and education. Jones has always had a passion for bridging  arts & culture, civic engagement and youth development. For more on her personal  praxis, see Jones’ TEDxMinneapolis Talk on Spoken Word as a Radical Practice of  Freedom.