In 2014, Surviving the Mic’s Founder, Nikki Patin, decided that she was tired of asking public performance spaces and their producers to hold space for the work of writers and performers who are survivors of sexual violence.
Surviving the Mic started as a 10 week workshop series for spoken word artists who identified as Black, woman and survivors of sexual violence.
The series blended writing and performance workshops with workshops on the history and statistics of how sexual violence has impacted Black women and girls.
Those that attended that first workshop series expressed a desire for their own space to perform and the Surviving the Mic Open Mic was born. After that, writing workshops were added to the beginning of the open mics. The series was curated as in-person programming in different spaces throughout and around Chicago.
Once the pandemic happened in 2020, StM’s in-person programming was quickly shifted to virtual programming. Starting as a weekly writing workshop, Virtually Together still happens monthly via Zoom.
All StM programming has been offered for free since 2014.
Surviving the Mic 