Jacquese Armstrong, author of blues legacy (2019), was the recipient of the 2019 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award and a 2015 Ambassador Award from the State of New Jersey Governor’s Council on Mental Health Stigma for promoting wellness and recovery and reducing stigma through the arts. She was a cast member of TMI Project’s storytelling performances Black Stories Matter: Every Word Spoken and Alone Together stories of COVID-19 in quarantine. Jacquese’s work has been published in midnight & indigo, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Ourselves Black, Stellium and others.