Yvelette Stines Graduated Cum Laude from University of Detroit Mercy with a B.A. in Communications. She also holds a M.S. in Holistic Nutrition and an M.Ed in Integrated Education from Cambridge College. Stines is an Educator, Writer, and Literary Event Planner. She has planned events for Touré, Contributing editor of Rolling Stone, and author of The Portable Promised Land, SoulCity and Never Drank the Kool-Aid. The guest artist at this event was nationally acclaimed poet Khary Kimani Turner who is also founder of the Detroit based band, Black Bottom Collective. Other writers that visited Detroit through Stines include Angie Cruz, author of Soledad and Let it Rain Coffee and Poetri, TONY award winning poet and one of the first poets chosen for the HBO Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry Jam. Stines served as Vice President of The Detroit Poetry Collective, a non-profit that promotes literary arts through performances and workshops in the Detroit area.

Stines has written about health, beauty, entertainment, education, and personal profiles for numerous publications. These include Essence Magazine, Uptown, Jones Magazine, Detroit Fashion Pages, Heart and Soul, Ambassador Magazine, After5Detroit, Black Health Magazine, Rolling Out, Atlanta Life Magazine, and Mahogany Magazine. She has interviewed many individuals such as Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Dr. Ian Smith, Chris-Tia Donaldson, Kimberly Seals-Allers, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Paula Tutman, Mitzi Miller, Suheir Hammad, Jeanette Jenkins (The Hollywood Trainer) Ouidad (The Curly Hair Expert), Jon Reyman of Aveda and Janice and Denise Tunnell of Illusions Cosmetics. She studied with Terry McMillan and Ruth Forman at the Voices Writing Workshop in San Francisco, California.

Along with writing Stines taught for four years. She was the keynote speaker at the Academy of Arts and Sciences Special Education Dinner, where she spoke about her personal experience and the positive side of dyslexia which was the basis of her thesis: How to Understand and Recognize the Dyslexic Child in the Regular Classroom. She also gives lectures on health and wellness.

Stines has been the recipient of many prestigious awards such as the National Achievement Award for Minority Leadership, the National Deans List, Who’s Who, and a name placement of the National Campaign for Tolerance in Birmingham, Alabama.