A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times

Meron Hadero is an Ethiopian American who was born in Addis Ababa and came to the US via Germany as a young child. Meron’s short stories have won the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, have been shortlisted for the 2019 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, and appear in Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Zyzzyva, The Iowa Review, Missouri Review, 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology, and others. She’s also been published in The New York Times Book Review, the anthology The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. A 2019–2020 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, and a fellow at Yaddo, Ragdale, and MacDowell, Meron holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, a JD from Yale Law School, and a BA in history from Princeton with a certificate in American studies.

Dele Ogundiran is an entertainment professional of Nigerian lineage whose multifaceted talent shines both on and off screen. As a performer, Dele most recently played a recurring guest star role on a soon-to-be announced show for Amazon. Prior to this, she has played diverse recurring roles, from an upscale magazine editor on ABC's comedy series Ugly Betty to a brassy but endearing addict on Showtime's hit drama series Ray Donovan. Since closing on a successful run in the West Coast premiere of the stage play Her Portmanteau (written by Mfoniso Udofia and directed by Gregg T. Daniel) at Boston Court Pasadena in the summer of 2018, Dele made her stand-up comedy debut at the world famous Ice House Comedy Club, wrapped on the feature film The Infiltrators (directed by Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibara, 2019 Sundance Film Festival Premiere-Audience Award and NEXT Innovator Prize), and guest starred on NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. A shortlist of her other television and film credits include Wisdom of the Crowd, Anger Management, Brothers & Sisters, Children's Hospital, He's Just Not That Into You, Maniac, and Silent But Deadly. Her stage appearances include roles in Our Lady of 121st Street, Balm In Gilead, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and her voice can be heard in the video games World of Warcraft and Dead Rising. Her credits as an audiobook narrator include Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham and Finding Love Again by Chioma Inwu Ibiam. Dele's beauty has been captured in national and international commercials and print campaigns for well-known brands including Allstate, IBM, Ford, Dark & Lovely, and McDonald's. As writer and award-winning producer, under her production company, Apphia Productions, Dele starred in, produced and cowrote her company's first film, Bathroom Vanities, which has screened at festivals worldwide. She also produced the award-winning short film The Encounter (Best Short Award, White Sands International Film Festival award). The award-winning feature film Elevate, which is her feature film debut as a producer, made its premiere at the tenth annual Downtown LA Film Festival in fall 2018. Most recently, Dele was the director of photography and producer on Casualty of Time (2020 Veterans Award, The Cinematic Arts Redemptive Entertainment (CARE) Awards) written and directed by Jeremiah Jahi. She is also editing her directorial debut, the short film Last Supper.

Waceke Wambaa is a voiceover artist with a passion for storytelling. She has experience with medical and corporate narration, commercials, documentaries, explainer videos, promos, audiobooks, and more. In her spare time, she can be found dabbling in her backyard, singing, acting, writing books, and volunteering as a reader at North Carolina Reading Service.