Cheeraz Gormon is a cultural advocate who creates engaging and culturally significant narratives that deeply connect with people. She is a visual storyteller, poet, and author, as well as a photographer and activist who utilizes both spoken and written language to highlight the overlooked realities of individuals, organizations, and communities. Gormon is also a spiritual care practitioner and community health worker, a nationally certified instructor for adult Mental Health First Aid, and a member of The STL Community Health Workers Coalition. Additionally, she is an award-winning advertising copywriter, a two-time TEDxGatewayArch speaker, and has spoken at various events on topics such as brain drain, branding, community activism, and social justice. In 2018, she received The Saint Louis Visionary Award for Outstanding Working Artist, an honor previously awarded to Shirley Bradley LeFlore in 2017.
Raised in the College Hill neighborhood of St. Louis, Gormon’s family moved there during a time when white residents were leaving the area due to the influx of Black families. In her poem “Who Moved My Memories,” she reflects on returning to her once-peaceful childhood neighborhood, now marked by vacant lots and the impacts of systemic poverty. She graduated from Miami Ad School and furthered her education in Cultural Anthropology and Psychology at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park.
Gormon has worked at the renowned African American advertising agency Burrell Communications in Chicago and attended WK12, an innovative advertising school within Wieden+Kennedy, where she later worked in their Portland office. From 2008 to 2013, she was the curriculum and creative director for The Marcus Graham Project’s iCR8™ Bootcamp. She continues to mentor emerging talent in the advertising field and currently freelances as a copywriter and creative director for agencies nationwide.
Through her writing and speaking, Gormon encourages her audience to witness, remember, and navigate the complexities of life as pathways to healing. She employs narratives in a spoken word style as means to foster human connection and understanding. Gormon has shared the stage with notable figures such as Cornell West, Dennis Kimbrow, MacArthur Genius Deborah Willis, and Russell Simmons, performing locally, nationally, and internationally. Her poetry has been published in platforms like Ebony Magazine online, Huffington Post, St. Louis Public Radio, and broadcast in London and Portland.
As a community-focused social entrepreneur, Gormon is committed to advocating for the visibility, care, and healing of underserved and marginalized groups. Following the loss of her brother to violence, she founded and serves as the executive director of the Sibling Support Network, an organization aimed at supporting individuals who have lost siblings to violent crime, and in 2018, she was featured in TIME Magazine’s, “Guns in America” issue for her work with Sibling Support Network. She has worked closely with and helped launch several St. Louis organizations, including the Screwed Arts Collective, STLNightWriters, Creative Reaction Lab, St. Louis Brick City Poetry Festival, and Sonic Arts United, a S.T.E.A.M. based nonprofit. Gormon continues to tackle sociopolitical issues in her community by using the arts to educate and inform the public. Visit her websiute at www.cheerazgormon.com.
