About the Authors
OPAL PALMER ADISA was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She is the cofounder of Watoto Wa Kuumba, a children’s theater group that she directed from 1979 to 1982. She is the author of Pina, the Many-eyed Fruit (1985), Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories (1986), Traveling Women (1989), Tamarind and Mango Women (1992), It Begins with Tears (1997), and Leaf-of-Life (2000). Her poetry, stories, and articles have been anthologized widely.
TA’SHIA ASANTI is the recipient of the Audre Lorde Black Quill Award, the Seed Scholarship award, and an award for best erotic fiction from the Literary Exchange. In 2002, she was nominated for the Courage in Journalism award. Asanti has written one novel, a collection of short stories, a book of poetry, and a book of creative nonfiction titled The Book of the Sacred Door. She lives in Denver with her partner and daughter.
CAMILLE BANKS-LEE is a writer, teacher, and cofounder of Daughters of the Nile, Inc., an academic and creative arts mentoring organization for adolescent girls in Mount Vernon, New York. She and her husband, Malcolm, live in New York with their son, Langston.
JAMYLA BENNU is a New York-based writer, dancer, and Web/print designer.
TARA BETTS, a Cave Canem fellow, is a writer and teacher in Chicago. Her work has appeared in These Hands I Know, Obsidian III, Columbia Poetry Review, That Takes Ovaries!, Role Call, Bum Rush the Page, Power Lines, Poetry Slam, and Steppenwolf Theatre’s Words on Fire. She cohosts an all-women’s open mic/performance space called Women OutLoud, and represented Chicago at the 1999 and 2000 National Poetry Slams.
JANEÉ BOLDEN is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at New York University. She was most recently published in Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art. She lives in New York City.
D. H. BRENT has written for a national trade association newspaper and owns and manages a graphic design/marketing firm. She has composed numerous poems, and recently began writing erotic short stories. She lives in Laurel, Maryland, and is working on her first novel.
C. C. CARTER has retired from the slam competition scene, but not before winning the Fifth Annual Guild Complex Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Competition and Lambda Book Report’s First Annual National Slam Competition at the Behind Our Mask conference, as well as several local and national slams. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia College in Chicago, where she teaches performance poetry workshops. She is a program director for adult literacy.
R. ERICA DOYLE is a writer of Trinidadian descent who resides in New York City. She teaches writing to teens and adults, is a fellow of Cave Canem, and has received awards from the Astraea and Hurston/Wright foundations. Her work appears in various publications, including Best American Poetry 2001, Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing, Bum Rush the Page, Role Call, Ploughshares, Callaloo and Ms. Magazine. She is currently at work on a novel.
MICHELE ELLIOTT is a writer, teacher, and visual artist. She teaches creative writing for several local arts organizations and is a grant writer for a community arts center in Washington, D.C. She is working on a book-length manuscript of poetry. She earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
DOROTHY RANDALL GRAY is a motivational speaker and the author of six books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including the best-selling Soul Between the Lines: Freeing Your Creative Spirit Through Writing. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and periodicals, including SisterFire, Drum Voices, Personal Journaling, Conditions, HealthQuest, and the New York Times. Gray facilitates writing workshops, empowerment seminars, and healing rituals throughout the United States and abroad. She is founder of the Heartland Institute for Transformation, a spiritual center for the promotion of creativity, empowerment, and healing through the written word.
CAROL SMITH PASSARIELLO, editor of Sister Soul Journeys, teaches in the English Department at State University of New York, Westchester. Her work has appeared in Honey and Black Issues Book Review as well as in the film The Best Man.
TRACY PRICE-THOMPSON is the author of the recent Random House release Black Coffee. She is currently coediting Proverbs for the People: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. Her work has been recently published in Children of the Dream: Our Stories of Growing Up Black in America and Fortitude. She received an M.S.W. from Rutgers University and is a Ralph Bunche Fellow as well as a Hurston/Wright Awardee.
SHAWN E. RHEA is a journalist, essayist, poet, and fiction writer. Her work has been featured in Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora, The Source, Essence, Black Enterprise, Teen People, BET.com, and the New Orleans Times Picayune. A graduate of Howard University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she is currently completing the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund’s forthcoming book I’ll Find a Way or Make One: A History of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A Detroit native, Rhea lives and writes variously in New York City and Detroit.
KIINI IBURA SALAAM is a writer, painter, and traveler from New Orleans. Her fiction has been anthologized in Black Silk, When Butterflies Kiss, Dark Matter, and Dark Eros. Her essays have been published in Role Call, Men We Cherish, Utne Reader, Essence, and Ms. She is currently crafting her first novel, Bloodlines, a collection of erotic short stories. She is the author of the KIS.list, a weekly e-report on life as a writer. Her work can be accessed at www.kiiniibura.com. She lives in Brooklyn.
DONNA SHERARD holds an M.P.H. degree in reproductive health, with a paricular interest in HIV prevention and education for women of color. She lives in Kampala, Uganda, writing and working in reproductive health programming and policy for women in East Africa.
FOLADE MONDISA SPEAKS-LOVE, a poet and painter, received an M.F.A. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A Cave Canem fellow, she has published in such visual art and literary journals as Nexus: Literary and Art Journal and Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, as well as on a CD of poetry and sound about Jean-Michel Basquiat. She is cofounder of the Chicago-based multimedia artist collective ink and image productions.
KIMBERLEY WHITE is the author of the sensuous romance novel Sweet Tomorrows. As the founder of Kimberley’s Critiquing and Consulting, she teaches writing courses and acts as a conference planner. She lives in Detroit.
ROBIN G. WHITE is the author of Resurrection: A Collection o f Work, a finalist for the 2002 Georgia Author of the Year Award. Her stories have been widely anthologized, and she has written for the Gay Community News, Dorchester Community News, and City Life/Vida Urbana. Her plays have been produced in Atlanta, New York, and Boston. She is a vocalist for the spoken-word band Sweet Black Molasses, and has performed with Adodi Muse, Ten Percent Revue, playwright Dr. Shirlene Holmes, and the Zuna Institute. She lives in Atlanta, where she is co-owner of Kings Crossing Publishing.
About the Editor
SAMIYA A. BASHIR, coeditor of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana, is a poet, writer, and editor (known for her work at Black Issues Book Review, Ms., and Curve magazines). She is completing her debut collection of poetry. A Cave Canem fellow, she has won numerous awards for her poetry, including being honored as Poet Laureate of the University of California and winning the 2002 Astraea Poetry Award. Her poetry, articles, essays and stories. have been published in many anthologies, magazines, and journals, including Obsidian III, Kuumba #4, ColorLines, Contemporary American Women Poets, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Arise, Other Countries: Voices Rising, Best Lesbian Erotica 2003, Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, Lambda Book Report, The American Journal of Public Health, and San Francisco Bay Guardian.
eISBN : 978-1-573-44439-2
Copyright © 2002 by Samiya A. Bashir.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording
, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Best Black Women's Erotica 2 Page 20