Lauretta Ali is an actor, writer and performance artist. She has performed in many plays and has been in a member of many poetry ensembles and theatrical companies in the New York metropolitan area. She studied acting technique at the Theater School in Georgetown, Washington DC; and improvisation with Norman Charles in New York. She has taken Commercial, Auditioning/Marketing and TV Sitcom classes with Robert Collier, also in New York. She has appeared in films and television commercials, most notably the independent film, "Satan Claus" and the TV Sitcom "Have Mercy." She recently co-starred in two Atlanta based plays, “A Day in the Life” and “Six Prayers and a Dream.” Now a resident of Stone Mountain, GA, she performs with her husband Yusef Ali (who plays the Congas and Percussion) under the logo Poetry & Skins. They CO-hosted a weekly Cablevision talk show, TALK TV, (interviewing artists of all genres, rising entrepreneurs and others)in Newark NJ and also aired on Atlanta's PeopleTV. They are often featured on Comcast’s cable show Relections, which airs on Sundays at 4PM. Lauretta was a resident writer for Detour Memphis an online magazine and a book reviewer for Armchairinterviews.com. She now has her own column, Letting Loose with Lauretta, featured by the Sankofa Literary Society. Her first published book is one of poetry based upon her life as a single parent in the 1960’s, Songs to a Manchild, written for her son who is now thirty-eight years old. Her nonfiction paperback novel, “Survival of the Fittest…One Child's Life in the Foster Care System” is published by Neshee Publication. http://www.myspace.com/laurettaali, http://actinglauretta.tripod.com, http://www.amazon.com and http://slsbookclubcenter.ning.com/group/lettingloosewithlauretta are her contact websites.