BIOS

Current storytellers

Ayana Clark Storyteller & Marketing Lead
Ayana is a longtime lover of theater who always saw the stage as a safe space. From an early age, she found comfort embodying characters as an escape from her own reality. In college, she learned to channel her trauma into storytelling, successfully weaving humor, emotion, and linguistics to paint verbal pictures of her life experiences. She is a proud boy mom to Ja'Mal (10) and Ja'Dyn (6)
Shelley A. Davis
Co-Founder & Storyteller
In 2017, Shelley A. Davis became inspired to become a storyteller, while she was driving down the highway crying while listening to an NPR radio story. In 2020, she co-founded SOL Collective: an organization of women of color focused on putting their voices at center stage to celebrate their own truths. Shelley’s stories are true personal essays. She became a storytelling performer because she believes that storytelling is a way to transmit humor, love, and insight. Shelley is a southside Chicago native. She lives with her husband and two teenage children in Bronzeville in an 1889 brownstone that always needs more work.
Kara Ervin
Co - Founder & Storyteller
Kara has been in love with stories since she first learned to read. She has always enjoyed reading books of any kind and writing personal essays. To this day she never leaves home without a book to read. In recent years, Kara has expanded her love of stories to create her own stories, shorts, poems and songs. This is her first year with the SOL Collective or performing storytelling of any kind. Kara is a native of Chicago currently residing in Bronzeville.
Awilda Gonzalez
Awilda is a Puerto Rican writer, speaker, and advocate with a rich background in higher education, mental health, and workforce development. Throughout her career, she has empowered individuals to define, pursue, and achieve their goals — guiding them toward self-reliance and personal transformation.
As a mother and grandmother, Awilda brings lived experience to her work, deeply attuned to the complexities of balancing parenting, career, and personal identity. She also contributed to The Body Is Not an Apology as a content writer, sharing stories rooted in healing, truth, and radical self-love. In 2018, her chapter “What’s Hair Got to Do with It?” was featured in the anthology Your Shift Matters: Resistance to Resilience.
Awilda describes her relationship with writing simply: “I’m not a poet or a performer — I just have a story to tell. It just happens to be that writing chose me to tell the story.”
Ruby Haughton-Pitts Storyteller
Ruby came to the SOL Collective in 2021 with a desire to learn from a diverse group of seasoned story tellers. Under the watchful eyes of the group, she has learned a great deal about the art of storytelling. She had her storytelling debut in winter of 2022 and fell in love. She has worked most of her adult life as a business and non-profit professional where telling the stories of organizations was key to her success. Nearing retirement, she decided that it was time to tell her own stories, that have included international travel as a child, and living and or working in every region of the USA as an adult. She and her husband live in Chicago, have three adult children, and recently celebrated their second grandchild.
Michelle Hughes Storyteller
2023 marked Michelle's debut with the SOL Collective in their December show “A Habit of Tenderness”.Some years ago she began learning about storytelling attending meetings of the Hyde Park Storytelling Guild in Chicago. After attending a conference on therapeutic storytelling, she was inspired to put that knowledge in action using storytelling as a facilitation tool in her consultant work. Currently she loves holding sacred space for creativity that includes; being a “house head”, playing her Djembe with Spirit Rhythms, and sharing her musings on her blog :Reflections of An Aging Revolutionary on Wordpress. She is a mother of two amazing adult children,(Nia and Joshua) and is still committed to keeping the faith and yearning for justice.
Terri Johnson Storyteller
Terri has written stories since she was a child, she began telling them when she joined the SOL Collective in 2020. Using her voice to speak truth to power is at the center of her work – both personal and professional. A second-generation South Sider, she is a fusion of public schools, Free Street Theatre, basement house and funk parties, black church pews, Harold’s mild sauce and Gladys’ catfish and spaghetti.
Keelah Moore Storyteller
Keelah started telling stories to improve her communication skills and fell in love with the storytelling process. She joined SOL in the Spring of 2023 and through this process not only has she drastically improved her communication skills, she has also gained an understanding of the profound depth her stories can have on others. She is a Chicago native, wife and mother of two who works as a Project Manager.
Karin Norington - Reaves Storyteller
Karin Norington-Reaves is a lover of languages, and a self-avowed nerd, who grew up loving the written word. She believes storytelling is in the blood and bones of all people but particularly those whose culture and language were taken from them. Karin is a huge fan of The Moth Radio Hour and believes that sharing our stories uplifts, affirms and heals us all. After witnessing the beauty and impact of a SOL Collective performance, she knew she’d found her people. Her dream life includes writing and telling stories, traveling the world, and one day competing on Jeopardy! Karin’s career has taken her from the classroom to the courtroom to the C-Suite. She is the proud mother of a blended family of four, who regards “Mama” as her favorite title of all. She and two of her children live in Chicago’s Chatham community.
R.C Riley Artistic Director (Dec 2025 Show)
R.C. Riley (they/them) is a queer, non-binary social activist, writer, and performer known for creating work at the intersection of personal truth, social justice, and transformative storytelling. R.C.’s solo show, Sex, Race & Jesus, was recently featured at Steppenwolf Theatre, where their performance captivated audiences with its honesty, humor, and emotional depth.
In addition to their directing and performance work, R.C. continues to develop original scripts and lead workshops that explore identity, resilience, and collective liberation. Their work has been featured on ABC 7, NBC 5, Chicago magazine, Windy City Times, and at festivals, churches, retreats, and numerous theaters, universities, and storytelling venues across the nation.
As Artistic Director of SOL Collective, R.C. leads with a commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices and creating safe spaces where artists can experiment, heal, and connect through story. Their artistic vision is grounded in the belief that storytelling is a powerful force for justice and liberation for society’s most marginalized.

Past Storytellers

Le’Trice Buckingham Storyteller
Le’Trice is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses storytelling, poetry and visual art to subvert and conjure. She believes in the transformative power of art and seeks to create in the rich traditions of Blackness. This is her first year with the extraordinary light that is Sol Collective. Her work can be found at artconjure.com. She lives just south of Chicago with her mother and feline daughter.
Emily Hooper Lansana Former Artistic Director & Storyteller
For more than thirty years, she has performed, curated and taught storytelling. She often performs with Performance Duo: In the Spirit. Her storytelling has taken her to stages across the country. Her work seeks to give voice to those whose stories are often untold, especially those of the African diaspora. She is honored to be a 2021 3Arts Award recipient. Emily is the proud mother of 4 powerful sons and 1 amazing granddaughter. Emily is the Artistic Director of SOL Collective.
Melody Waller Storyteller
Bio not available at time of publication
Lauren M. Woods Storyteller
Lauren Woods, a fourth-generation Chicagoan from the South Side, has cherished stories since childhood. As a mixed media artist, she carries the legacy of her family and community, weaving tales into her art that underscore our connectedness and humanity. Her work blends vibrant visuals and narratives to celebrate Black culture and the bonds of family. With each piece, Lauren invites her audience to explore a world where stories are not just told but deeply felt, connecting us all.
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Photos by Ozzie Ramsay Photography