LeJuane "El'Ja" Bowens

LeJuane "El'Ja" Bowens is a motivational speaker, poet, author, Comic Con panelist and workshop facilitator who has performed in numerous slams and featured across the US.

In 2014,he was recognized as the 1st ever NC Poet to compete in three different Grand Slam Finals in three different cities & win ALL three slams(Fayetteville, Charlotte, and Durham) and, along with the Bull City Slam Team, won the 22nd Southern Fried Poetry Slam.

He is one of the founders and is the director for the Southeastern Regional NC Poetry Festival held once a year in Fayetteville, NC and he is a featured poet on Poetry Slam Inc's Youtube channel and All Def Poetry; a Youtube channel produced and facilitated by Russell Simmons (The Chairman and CEO of Rush Communications and co-founded the hip-hop music label Def Jam).

El'Ja is also the author of the poetry book, " So Many Things to Say: A Collection of Poems" and "Anywhere...But Here". As of 2016, he was the recipient of the Rising Star Male Poet Award for the State of North Carolina and overall recipient of the award for the 2016 GANSPA Awards. He is also host to an event called the Nerd Slam which he has done at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam, National Poetry Slam, and numerous ComicCon events across the Carolinas.