Barak Bomani is a published author, songwriter, business owner and award-winning educator originally from East Oakland, California, currently living in the beautiful City of Compton. Growing up in Oakland, California, Bomani began writing poetry and protest speeches to the Oakland Board of Education as early as McChesney Junior High School and solidified his love for the written word at his secondary alma mater Saint Mary's College High in Berkeley, CA. After accepting a four-year Ivy League academic scholarship, Bomani earned a BA in English from Dartmouth College. He was invited to become one of the contributing writers for Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach, written in partnership with the Center for Courage & Renewal and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Handpicked as the founding principal of a new charter school in Oakland (first high school built in over 40 years at the time), Bomani and his amazing team of educators created a school culture where 100% of senior graduates earned at least one acceptance letter to a four-year college. While a principal, Bomani earned his MA in Education with highest honors in Supervision and Instruction from San Jose State University. As a local community activist, Bomani and his wife Sara founded Unearth and Empower Communities, a nonprofit committed to creating pathways to college, employment, and entrepreneurship for Compton youth through engagement with STEM education & the arts. In his debut #LOVENOFEAR series novel, Where in the Hell is God: Miguel's Enemy, Bomani's characters explore conversations of race, religion, education and identity. A huge advocate of social emotional learning and what he calls heart, mind and soul work, Bomani curates safe and healthy spaces for communities to heal from trauma and to re-imagine a culture of living free in a diverse world. Bomani believes, "Justice doesn't have a religion, for it fights on behalf of all humanity, especially those we neglect, harm and hate."