Three award-winning and internationally recognized writers take to the stage tonight at Florida Studio Theatre, with playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, poet Camille Dungy and novelist Chinelo Okparanta, all three African-American women, reading and discussing their work, while sharing stories of the inspirations and challenges they have faced throughout their lives and careers. Presented by the Hermitage Artist Retreat, where all three women are currently artists in residence, this community dialogue is free and open to the public, beginning at 7:30pm in the Goldstein Cabaret.

Each speaker brings her own singular background and perspective—from Brooklyn-based Drury, the playwright whose work has shown across the U.S. and in London and been workshopped in places like Sundance, to acclaimed poet Dungy, whose words have filled three books and garnered two Northern California Book Awards and two NAACP Image Award nominations. Nigerian-born Okparanta rounds out the trio. A New Yorker-published storyteller on a bit of a hot streak, Okparanta was named one of Granta’s six new voices to watch in 2012, short-listed for the Caine Prize in African Writing in 2013 and received both the 2014 O. Henry Award and 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.

“Lately there have been a lot of conversations about the inequalities faced by women, not only in corporate America, but in the art world as well,” said Bruce Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, on the purpose of the dialogue. “We thought it would be interesting to have them address this topic.”

“The theater, by its very nature, is in dialogue with our community,” added FST Associate Director Kate Alexander, who views this sort of community discussion as a natural outgrowth of issues raised and opinions challenged regularly on stage. “This Artists’ talk represents the fullest aspect of those dialogues–women who are changing the world.”

Drury, Dungy and Okparanta continue the discussion tonight at 7:30pm at Florida Studio Theatre.