Marty McConnell transplanted herself from Chicago to New York City in 1999 after completing three national tours with the Morrigan, an all-female performance poetry troupe she co-founded. She received her MFA in creative writing/poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and competed in the 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 National Poetry Slams with the NYC/Union Square team. She is a member of The louderARTS Project, which runs two reading series, ongoing workshops and collaborative performances in NYC. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies. After two years of working with NYC youth as associate director of Urban Word NYC, legendary film and television producer Norman Lear tapped her to be one of four poets creating the spoken word portion of Declare Yourself, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign aiming to energize and empower a new movement of young voters to participate in the political process in this critical election year.