EngAGE Blog

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Melanie Luja, Author – Speaker – Educator – Poet

Melanie Luja (known creatively as Queen Socks) is a soul-work practitioner, life-purpose coach, educator, author, and award-winning poet.  She is also the co-founder of The Vibrations Enrichment Group, which focuses on Alkaline Education, and The Balance Portal, a private practice in southern CA, where the aim is Alternative Soul-Care.  With the release of the book Internal Balance: Would You Marry You? alongside her husband, Oshea Luja, Melanie has brought another level of philosophical truths into a synergy designed to balance a person’s universe internally and externally.

With a marketing and communications background from Cal State Fullerton, Melanie went on to start a promotions company in the late 90’s representing the artists of Def Jam, Columbia Records, and So So Def to name a few. She has also work with Jay-Z, The Fugees, Da Brat, Destiny’s Child, and many others in the entertainment industry.

As a celebrity stylist for over twenty-five years, her craft mastery has led her into creating an all-natural skin, hair care and tea line called Subtle Tiyes, designed to assist in the beautification of one’s essence.  Melanie also facilitates lectures, workshops, conducts private consultations, and is the executive director of Still Waters Network, a Los Angeles-based production company that raises global awareness through the creative arts.

As an herbalist, Melanie enjoys creating concoctions and elixirs to assist in the healing process. Melanie is an accredited cosmetologist, Reiki Master, and soul-work therapist.  A native of Los Angeles, California, this creative force is also a seasoned speaker, poet, and host, sharing stages with the likes of Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka and Angela Davis. 

As a wife, mother of five, and entrepreneur, Melanie has also found time to become a doula and energy intuit in the fields of spirituality, soul-work, health, and balance. Melanie’s rite of passage has been spiritually rewarding, humbly studying under the tutelage of author, poet, and priest Father Amde of the legendary Watts Prophets; award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, and poet S. Pearl Sharp; and The Grandfather of Rap and acupuncturist Dr. Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of the legendary Last Poets.

As non-denominational ministers, Melanie and her husband, Oshea Luja, are sought after to facilitate weddings, funerals, rite-of-passage ceremonies, and many other sacred rituals throughout the year. Melanie’s research and life experiences have cultivated a unique philosophy that celebrates internal balance, suggesting that everyone has the innate ability to experience love inwardly, and the awareness of this actuality triggers an opening to explore love’s trajectory.

Some of Melanie’s works include (Books): Internal Balance, Would You Marry You? (2017), Tea with Melanie (2015); Sounds from The Waters, Poetry Anthology (2013), The Watts Learning Center Anthology (2011) Try Walking A Mile in My Socks (2010). Stage plays: Smoke (2017), Big City Bright Lights, (2014), Flowers, (2010).  Albums: After-Birth (2019), The Love-Lock (2015), N My Socks (2009). School curriculums: The Princess Project initiative, The Beautiful Me Workshop, and The Still Waters’ Writers’ Super-Heru Workshop.  Stay tuned for Melanie’s forth-coming novel, Sweet Peppa, due to be released in the spring of 2020.  For more info on Melanie, please contact: www.StillWatersEvents.com.

Paul Cummins

“If you start with the premise that all children and young people are inherently valuable and potentially productive, then you seek to bring quality education to ALL. Acting upon this premise, I have learned that quality education needs to be buttressed by encouragement, affection, and long-term commitment. Environment combined with relationships….these are what matter.”~ Paul Cummins

Dr. Paul Cummins, Co-Founder and Senior Seminar English Teacher at TREE Academy, received his Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University, his MAT from Harvard, and his doctorate from the University of Southern California. In 1971, he co-founded Crossroads School in Santa Monica and built it into one of Los Angeles’ most successful educational institutions and a national model for innovative, independent schools.

In 1995, Cummins stepped down as Headmaster of Crossroads and formed New Visions Foundation (now Coalition for Engaged Education) to offer opportunities for an Engaged Education to all youth. The first venture was New Roads School, a diverse, K-12 independent school in Santa Monica. He co-founded six schools in all and has implemented a number of innovative programs in Los Angeles to help children at risk.

Cummins has published four books on education, including Proceed With Passion: Engaging Students in Meaningful Education (2004), and Confessions of a Headmaster (2015). His book of essays, Why Poetry? Reflections on Poetry, Writing and Culture (2009), Voice & Verse: Joys and How-To’s of Teaching, Reading and Writing Poetry (2018), The Collected Poems of Paul F. Cummins (2019) and two children’s books, The Misadventures of Thomas Hippopotamus (2011) and All Aboard the Train of Thought (2012).

Cummins and his wife Mary Ann reside in Santa Monica. They have four daughters and five grandchildren.

Taalam Acey, Poet, Independent Artist, Educator

“You have so, so much inspired me with your Spoken Word” said the legendary Stevie Wonder, while interviewing Taalam Acey, during Wonder’s own birthday celebration in May 2008.

Taalam, a child of the Newark Rebellion, was raised by a single mother who served as a member of the famed writer and activist Imamu Amiri Baraka’s community organization. Acey is an independent artist whose work has been featured frequently on TV One as well as the Documentary Channel, and was selected as the original “number one thing you need to know about” on BET’s countdown show, “The 5ive.” Over the years, BET has featured and aired roughly a half dozen segments featuring Taalam Acey. The Newark, NJ native’s poetry has appeared in Essence Magazine, and Susan Taylor, the magazine’s Editor Emeritus, personally invited Acey to perform for an audience of six thousand at The Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. Acey was a curator of the 2012 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (the largest poetry gathering in North America), and was selected as the initial presenter for the inaugural Baltimore TEDx. 

Taalam was also the guest curator of the 2011 Sacred Circle Cafe at New Jersey’s most prestigious theater, the NJ Performing Arts Center. He was honored to be a guest of Congresswoman Maxine Waters for the Congressional Black Caucus’ 2007 and 2008 “Young Gifted and Black” panels. He has recited work and given workshops in several countries such as Mexico, Germany, Jamaica, Holland, Austria, and approximately one hundred schools of higher education, including the esteemed Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, where he delivered a lecture on contemporary Spoken Word. Taalam Acey has recorded more than sixteen CDs and authored seven books. Additionally, films that include his work have garnered an Audience Award (2002) and a Special Jury Prize (2006) at the Sundance Film Festival. He was featured in an acclaimed Radio-One London slam poetry documentary, and Marc Smith, the founder of slam poetry, used Acey’s work in his definitive book. Taalam currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.