Poet, playwright, and community activist Ayodele Nzinga was selected recently as Oakland’s inaugural poet laureate, city officials announced.

Nzinga is the founding producer director of the West Oakland theater company Lower Bottom Playaz, established in 1999. She is also the founding director of Black Arts Movement Business District Community Development Corporation, which produces BAMBD FEST, an international arts and cultural festival celebrating the arts in the Black community.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.