Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 88

CONNIE BRISCOE is the author of P.G. County, Sisters & Lovers, Big Girls Don't Cry, and A Long Way from Home. She is the former managing editor of the American Annals of the Deaf at Gallaudet University and has been hearing-impaired for most of her adult life. She lives in Ellicott City, Maryland.

LORI BRYANT-WOOLRIDGE, the author of the novel Read Between the Lies, is a veteran of the television broadcasting business. She spent seven years at ABC and has worked at PBS and Black Entertainment Television. She has won an Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Writing.

CRIS BURKS earned her MFA in creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago, where she taught fiction writing for several years. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in several literary publications, including Shooting Star Review and Short Fiction by Women. She lives in Sacramento, California, and is the author of SilkyDreamGirl.

BEBE MOORE CAMPBELL is the author of three acclaimed novels: Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which won an NAACP Image Award for Literature, What You Owe Me, and the New York Times bestsellers Brothers and Sisters and Singing in the Comeback Choir. She lives in Los Angeles.

LORENE CARY is the author of Black Ice, a memoir, and the novels Pride and The Price of a Child. She teaches writing at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

VERONICA CHAMBERS, a former editor at The New York Times Magazine is the author of the memoir Mama's Girl. Currently, Veronica is a cultural writer for Newsweek. She is a frequent contributor to both The New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and author of a book about filmmaker John Singleton, Poetic Justice: Filmmaking in South Central. She is also the author of two children's books, Amistad Rising: The Battle for Freedom and Marisol and Magdalena. She is in the early stages of other fiction projects.

MAXINE CLAIR is the author of the novel October Suite and Rattlebone, a collection of short stories, which won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for fiction, among other awards. She is also a Guggenheim Fellow.

PEARL CLEAGE is the author of the novels I Wish I Had a Red Dress and What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day as well as Mad at Miles: A Black Woman's Guide to Truth and Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot. She is an accomplished playwright and a cofounder of the literary magazine Catalyst. Ms. Cleage lives in Atlanta with her husband.

J. CALIFORNIA COOPER is the author of The Future Has a Past and five other collections of short stories, including Homemade Love, winner of the 1989 American Book Award, and the novels The Wake of the Wind, Family, and In Search of Satisfaction. She lives in northern California.

DANA CRUM is a journalist and poet who lives in Harlem. Crum has built an impressive resume as a freelance writer. Since getting his first big break in the urban magazine The Source, Crum has successfully made a name for himself in both commercial and underground syndication.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of After the Dance and two novels, The Farming of Bones and Breath, Eyes, Memory. Krik? Krak!, her collection of stories, was nominated for a National Book Award. Critical acclaim and awards for her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, included a Granta Regional Award for the Best Young American Novelists, a Pushcart Prize, and fiction awards from Essence and Seventeen magazines.

R. ERICA DOYLE 's fiction has appeared in Blithe House Quarterly. She has published poems and articles in Callalloo, Ms., Best American Poetry 2001, and Black Issues Book Review, among other venues.

TANANARIVE DUE is the author of the novels The Living Blood, The Black Rose, My Soul to Keep, and The Between. Freedom in the Family, a book written with her mother, Patricia Stephens Due, will be published in 2003. Due has a BS in journalism from Northwestern University and an MA in English literature from the University of Leeds, England, where she specialized in Nigerian literature as a Rotary Foundation Scholar.

DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM is the author of Gabriel's Story and A Walk Through Darkness. He was born in New York City and spent his formative years in Trinidad, his parents' homeland. He received a BA and MFA from the University of Maryland and won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fiction Award in 1992. Durham, along with his wife and children, divides his time between Scotland and the United States.

PATRICIA ELAM is the author of Breathing Room. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, Essence, Emerge, Newsday, and in anthologies such as Fathers' Songs and New Stories from the South. A winner of the O. Henry Award, she has been a commentator for National Public Radio, NBC News, CNN, and the BBC. She lives in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

PERCIVAL EVERETT is a professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of fourteen books, including Glyph, Frenzy, Watershed, and Suder. He lives in Los Angeles.

ROBERT FLEMING, a former award-winning reporter at the New York Daily News, is the author of The Wisdom Of The Elders, The African American Writer's Handbook, Havoc After Dark: Tales of Terror, and the editor of After Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing by Black Men. His poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals and books, such as Brotherman, UpSouth, Sacred Fire, Brown Sugar, and Dark Matter. He lives in New York City.

ARTHUR FLOWERS is the author of two novels, De Mojo Blues and Another Good Loving Blues. He is a cofounder of the New Renaissance Writers Guild.

THOMAS GLAVE is the author of Whose Song? And Other Stories. Voted a "Writer on the Verge" in June 2000's the Village Voice Literary Supplement, he has won many writing awards, among them the prestigious O. Henry Prize. He is only the second gay black writer, after James Baldwin, to claim that honor. A 1993 honors graduate of Bowdoin College and a graduate of Brown University, he traveled as a Fulbright Scholar in 199899 to Jamaica, where he studied Jamaican historiography and Jamaican-Caribbean intellectual and literary traditions. Glave has been published and praised in many prestigious literary journals and his work has appeared in various anthologies. Born in the Bronx, New York, he was raised there and in Kingston, Jamaica. He is a.s.sistant professor of English at the State University of New York, Binghamton.

MARITA GOLDEN is the author of nine works of fiction and nonfiction, including her memoir, Migrations of the Heart, and the bestselling books Long Distance Life and Saving Our Sons. Her most recent novel is The Edge of Heaven. Marita Golden serves as president of the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

JEWELLE GOMEZ is an activist, teacher, arts administrator, and literary critic. A transplanted Bostonian, she has lived in New York for twenty years, most recently in Brooklyn. She is the author of The Gilda Stories.

E. LYNN HARRIS is a former IBM computer sales executive and a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He is the author of eight previous novels: A Love of My Own, Any Way the Wind Blows, Not a Day Goes By, Abide with Me, If This World Were Mine, This Too Shall Pa.s.s, Just as I Am, and Invisible Life. In 1996 and 2002 Just as I Am and Any Way the Wind Blows were named Novel of the Year by the Blackboard African American Bestsellers, Inc. If This World Were Mine won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. In 2000 and 2001 Harris was named one of the fifty-five "Most Intriguing African Americans" by Ebony and inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. In 2002, Harris was included in Savoy magazine's "100 Leaders and Heroes in Black America." Harris divides his time between New York City and Atlanta, Georgia.

DAVID HAYNES is the author of a number of books including All American Dream Dolls, Somebody Else's Mama, and Right By My Side, which was a winner in the 1992 Minnesota Voices Project and was selected by the American Library a.s.sociation as one of 1994's best books for young adults. Two of Haynes's stories have been recorded for the National Public Radio series Selected Shorts. In 1996 Haynes was named by Granta magazine as one of the best young American novelists. Haynes is at work on his next novel, The Majordomo's Daughter.

RAVI HOWARD is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Ravi's winning story Like Trees, Walking was inspired by the 1981 lynching of Michael Donald by the Ku Klux Klan. Howard is at work on the novel Like Trees Walking.

BRIAN KEITH JACKSON is the author of The Queen of Harlem, Walking Through Mirrors, and The View from Here. Jackson has received fellows.h.i.+ps from Art Matters, the Jerome Foundation, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. The View from Here won the American Library a.s.sociation Literary Award for First Fiction from the Black Caucus of America. Jackson lives in Harlem.

MITCh.e.l.l JACKSON is a native or Portland, Oregon. He received a BS in Speech Communications and an MA in creative writing from Portland State University. Jackson is currently living in New York City, freelance writing and attending New York University's MFA program.

SANDRA JACKSON-OPOKU is the author of Hot Johnny and The River Where Blood Is Born, which won the Black Caucus of the American Library a.s.sociation Award for Fiction in 1998. Jackson-Opoku has received several honors and awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellows.h.i.+p and two Gwendolyn Brooks Poet Laureate Awards.

KENJI JASPER is the author of the novels Dakota Grand and Dark. His work has appeared in Vibe, Essence, The Source, and other publications. A native of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., and a graduate of Morehouse College, he now lives in Brooklyn.

YOLANDA JOE is the author of the novels This Just In, Bebe's By Golly Wow, He Say, She Say, and Falling Leaves of Ivy. She also writes mysteries under the name Ardella Garland. Joe is a native of Chicago and received her MS from the Columbia School of Journalism in New York. After returning to Chicago, she began working in news radio for CBS, then switched to television news and worked as a writer/producer for a decade before beginning a full-time writing career.

MAT JOHNSON is the author of Drop. He was a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellows.h.i.+p, and received his MFA from Columbia University. He is currently at work on his second novel, set in Harlem where he lives.

R.M. JOHNSON is the author of the novels Father Found and The Harris Men. He lives in Chicago.

EDWARD P. JONES 's debut collection of short stories Lost in the City: Stories was nominated for the National Book Award in 1992 and won the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for best first fiction.

TAYARI JONES is the author of the novel Leaving Atlanta. She is a native of Atlanta, Georgia.

AGYMAH KAMAU is the author of Flickering Shadows and Pictures of a Dying Man. He is originally from Barbados.

MICHAEL KAYODE lives in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., where he is at work on a novel.

VICTOR D. LAVALLE is the author of Slapboxing with Jesus, a collection of stories, and the novel The Ecstatic. He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and received his MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Ma.s.sachusetts. Currently he is at work on his first novel.

HELEN ELAINE LEE is the author of the novels Water Marked and The Serpent's Gift. She teaches in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT. Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Lee won rave reviews and a BCALA First Novel Award for The Serpent's Gift. She lives in the Boston area.

WILLIAM HENRY LEWIS is the author of a collection of stories, In the Arms of Our Elders, and his work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Best American Short Stories 1996.

CHRISTINE LINCOLN is the author of Sap Rising. Lincoln was born and raised in Baltimore. At age thirty-four, she graduated from Was.h.i.+ngton College and was awarded the school's Sophie Kerr Prize, an event that was covered by The New York Times and The Was.h.i.+ngton Post.

BERNICE L. MCFADDEN was born, raised, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. In 1997, Ms. McFadden quit her job and dedicated seven months to rewriting the novel that would become Sugar. McFadden is the author of three novels, the national bestsellers Sugar and The Warmest December, and This Bitter Earth. The trade paperback edition of The Warmest December was published in January 2002.

TERRY MCMILLAN is the author of Mama, Disappearing Acts, and the bestsellers Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short. She is also the editor of the groundbreaking anthology Breaking Ice.

WALTER MOSLEY is the author of the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series, Blue Light, and RL's Dream, and two collections of stories featuring the character Socrates Fortlow: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield-Wold Award, and Walkin' the Dog. He was born in Los Angeles and lives in New York.

ANIKA NAILAH is the author of Free: And Other Stories. Nailah is the director of Books of Hope, a program that encourages young people to write and self-publish their own books. Her stories have appeared in several African American newspapers, including Reunion and Flare. She lives in Ma.s.sachusetts.

GLORIA NAYLOR is the author of The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey's Cafe.

ELIZABETH NUNEZ is the author of four novels, including Discretion and Bruised Hibiscus, the winner of an American Book Award. She lives in Amityville, New York. A new novel, Grace, will be published in 2003.

GWENDOLYN M. PARKER is the author of The Pa.s.sing and These Same Long Bones. She lives in Connecticut.

ALEXS D. PATE 's work has appeared in The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, Utne Reader, and Artpaper. He is the author of the novels West of Rehobeth, The Multicultiboho Sideshow, Sideshow, Losing Absalom, and Finding Makeba.

AUDREY PETTY teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where she is completing her first novel. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Crab Orchard Review.

CONNIE PORTER is the author of Imani All Mine. She has taught English and creative writing at Emerson College in Ma.s.sachusetts and at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Porter's Addy books for young readers have sold more than three million copies. Named a regional winner in Granta's Best Young American Novelists contest for her first novel, All-Bright Court, she lives in Virginia.

SCOTT POULSON BRYANT was one of the founding editors of the hip-hop magazine Vibe. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, The New York Times, The Source, Essence, and Spin magazine. He divides his time between New York and Miami.

NANCY RAWLES is a novelist and playwright who grew up in Los Angeles and began her career as a professional writer in Chicago. Her first novel, Love Like Gumbo, was awarded the 1998 American Book Award and Was.h.i.+ngton State's Governor's Writers Award, and her plays have been produced in Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Seattle. She lives and teaches creative writing in Seattle. Her next novel, Crawfish Dreams, will be published in 2003.

JEWELL PARKER RHODES is the author of the novels Voodoo Dreams and Magic City and has received a National Endowment for the Arts award in fiction and a Yaddo Creative Writing Residency. Rhodes is also a professor of creative writing and American literature at Arizona State University. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is also the author of The African American Guide to Nonfiction and Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors.

NELLY ROSARIO is the author of Song of the Water Saints. She earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from MIT and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She has received numerous awards, including a 1999 Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Fellows.h.i.+p, the Bronx Writers' Center Van Lier Literary Fellows.h.i.+p for 19992000, two National Arts Club Writing Fellows.h.i.+ps, the 1997 Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction, and most recently she has been chosen as a "Writer on the Verge" by the Village Voice Literary Supplement for 2001. Rosario is published in the anthology Becoming American (Hyperion, 2000). She now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter Olivia.

DANZY SENNA is the author of Caucasia. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, where she received several creative writing awards. She lives in New York City.

GENARO KY LY SMITH of Lake Charles, Louisiana, won the ninth annual Hurston/Wright Award for his novel excerpt Land South of the Clouds. Smith is a student at McNeese State University.

DAWN TURNER TRICE is the author of Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven and An Eighth of August. She writes for the Chicago Tribune and NPR's Morning Edition. She lives outside Chicago with her husband.

VALERIE WILSON WESLEY is the author of the nationally bestselling Tamara Hayle mystery series, which includes When Death Comes Stealing, Devil's Gonna Get Him, Where Evil Sleeps, No Hiding Place, and Easier to Kill. Her mysteries are also published in Germany, France, Poland, and the UK. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Essence, Ms., The New York Times, and numerous other publications. She was the recipient of the 2000 Black Caucus of the American Library a.s.sociation Literary Award for Ain't n.o.body's Business If I Do. Ms. Wesley has two daughters and is married to noted screenwriter and playwright Richard Wesley.

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN is the author of a number of books including Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, Sent for You Yesterday, Hoop Roots Fever, and The Hiding Place. His work has been widely anthologized.

CRYSTAL WILKINSON is the 2002 recipient of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature and a member of a Lexington-based writing collective, The Affrilachian Poets. She has presented workshops and readings throughout the country, including the Sixth International Conference on the Short Story in English at the University of Iowa and the African American Women Writers Conference at the University of the District of Columbia. She is the author of two books, Blackberries, Blackberries (July 2000), and Water Street (September 2002), both published by Toby Press. Wilkinson is currently Writer in Residence at Eastern Kentucky University.

DAVID WRIGHT is the author of Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Life Savers. His fiction has appeared in Sixty-Four, Southern Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and African American Review. He has published essays on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and the teaching of literacy. His television feature, The Pea Island Story, won a Salute to Excellence First Prize from the National a.s.sociation of Black Journalists. He has received an NEH Fellows.h.i.+p, a Paul Cuffe Fellows.h.i.+p, and the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award.

SHAY YOUNGBLOOD is the Georgia-born author of the novels Black Girl in Paris and Soul Kiss and a collection of short fiction, The Big Mama Stories. Her plays, Amazing Grace, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, and Talking Bones (Dramatic Publis.h.i.+ng Company), have been widely produced. Her other plays include Black Power Barbie and Communism Killed My Dog. An Edward Albee honoree, and the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Pushcart Prize for fiction, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, several NAACP Theater Awards, and an Astraea Writers' Award for fiction, Ms. Youngblood graduated from Clark-Atlanta University and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. She has worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the eastern Caribbean, as an au pair, artist's model, and poet's helper in Paris, and as a creative writing instructor in a Rhode Island women's prison. She is a member of the Writers' Guild of America and the Dramatists' and Authors' Guild. She lives in New York City.

Gumbo: a celebration of African American writing / edited by Marita Golden and E. Lynn Harris.-1st ed.

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