About Word Force

 

We collaborate with social justice organizations and leaders to impact the public conversation. 

We bring a deep understanding of audience engagement strategies and a multi-pronged approach to storytelling for impact. Our freelance writers are seasoned organizers and communication specialists, whose work has appeared in major publications in every market in the U.S.

Our Story

 

In 2020, we asked  racial justice and immigrant rights movement Changemakers what they needed to make a lasting impact on the broader conversation. They spoke of difficulty popularizing their ideas, values and beliefs. Lack of access to writers and limited capacity to produce content that does more than react were named as key challenges. 

Many organizations focus their communications on campaigns, social media, and policies that don’t always serve their broader vision for just futures. 

Word Force helps make long-term narrative strategy everyday practice.  

 Who We Are

 

  • Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black & Published podcast. Her latest book, Mardi Gras Indians, was published by LSU Press in October 2022. Nikesha is a Chicago native. She attended The Florida State University where she graduated with a B.S. in Communication: Mass Media Studies and Honors English Creative Writing. Nikesha’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, ESSENCE, and VOX. She lives in Florida with her family.

    Pronouns: She/her

  • Megan Izen is a communications strategist with over fifteen years experience in the United States and Southern Africa.

    With both editorial and graphic design experience, Megan has worked to help strengthen organizational sustainability, infrastructure and commitment to racial, environmental and gender justice. She has worked with a wide range of organizations, philanthropists and activists including PhytoTrade Africa, Hedgebrook: Women Authoring Change, Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Unbound Philanthropy and Race Forward.

    Megan received her Bachelor of Arts in Women's and Gender Studies and Mathematics from Sonoma State University and Master of Arts from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York. Her writing has been published by Colorlines, alternet.org and the New York Times.

    Pronouns: She/her

  • Rinku Sen is a writer and social justice strategist. She is formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and was Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. She was also the architect of the Shattered Families report, which identified the number of kids in foster care whose parents had been deported.

    Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. As a consultant, Rinku has worked on narrative and political strategy with numerous organizations and foundations, including PolicyLink, the ACLU and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She serves on numerous boards, including the Women’s March, where she is Co-President, and the Foundation for National Progress, publisher of Mother Jones magazine.

    Pronouns: She/her

 

  • Nadia Awad is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, whose work focuses on narrative and justice.

    For over fifteen years, she has produced media on the lives of LGBT, HIV-affected, and MENA communities. She contributed 20 oral histories, many with Muslim and Arabic-speaking narrators, for the New York Trans Oral History Project, and created photographs and videos on trans athletes, HIV criminalization, and healthcare access for Lambda Legal. Nadia has written about film, memory, and power for The New Inquiry, The Journal of Palestine Studies, and Camera Obscura. Two forthcoming scholarly works, Terrorism in American Memory and a study on Middle Eastern asylum seekers, will feature her art.

    Nadia received a B.A. from York University. She lives in New York with her partner, and an ever-expanding collection of succulents.

    Pronouns: She/her

  • Lawrence Downes is a writer and editor with long experience in newspapers and opinion journalism. At The New York Times, where he was an editor on the Metro and National desks and a member of the editorial board from 2005 to 2017, he was the lead editorial writer on immigration and New York City and State government and politics. Lawrence’s editorials covered a wide range of subjects, including transportation, housing, police reform, education, grassroots advocacy, racist violence, veterans issues, religion, and popular music and culture. His news and feature writing for The Times included articles on the Mexican narcocorrido music scene in Los Angeles, Flannery O’Connor’s life in rural Georgia, a cookbook written entirely in tweets, and the exodus of Hawaii residents to Las Vegas.