Confirmed Speakers of the 2023 National Black Writers Conference Biennial Symposium
Diasporic Visions: Celebrating Black Speculative Fiction
These esteemed writers, poets, storytellers, scholars, and literary activists will gather at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn (Friday, March 31 – Saturday, April 1). Learn more about our special guests. Click their images to read their bios!
Click HERE to explore the full program and to register.
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson currently serves as an Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reynaldo is currently the Executive Director and co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM), an international network of artists, intellectuals, creatives, and activists. He is also a founding member of A.R.T. 2063, (Africans Rising Together). He is the co-editor of the following anthologies and journals, Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness and The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design (Lexington Books, 2015, 2019), Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent (Cedar Grove Publishing, 2018), Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures, a special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (2018), and When is Wakanda: Afrofuturism and Dark Speculative Futurity (The Journal of Futures Studies, 2019). He is also the author of numerous articles on Africana Studies and Communication studies and helped conceive the joint BSAM and NY LIVE Arts Curating the “End of the World” online exhibitions (2020-2021). Reynaldo recently served as a member of the curatorial council for Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism festival in 2022.He has presented papers in areas of communications, Africana studies, Afrofuturism, and critical theory in the US and abroad.
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson
Mo Beasley
Mo Beasley, a Universal Man in the world of theater and performance, is an award-winning poet, published writer, arts educator, and activist. In 2006, the New York Daily News heralded him as one of "50 Unsung New York Heroes," citing his selfless work uplifting the arts for youth and adults alike. Beasley earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from Howard University. The Boston-born, Miami Beach-based artist sees Art as a Leader In Social Evolution. AUTHOR: Be a Father to Your Child (Counterpoint Press); No Good Nigga Bluez (Scripted Linguistics). PLAYWRIGHT: Iced Out Shackled and Chained... (National Black Theater Festival); No Good Nigga Bluez (NY International Fringe Festival). ARTS EDUCATOR | PUBLIC SPEAKER: The National Black Writers Conference, CatalystCon, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Penn State Black Lawyers Association. FEATURED POET: Blue Note, Nuyorican Poets Café, BAMcafe, Joe's Pub, Center, Bowery Poetry Club, and the American Museum of Natural History. PRODUCER: Mo Beasley's UrbanErotika and LoveSuites. STAGE MANAGER: Broadway's Bring In Da Noise/Bring In Da Funk; Off-Broadway's Blue Man Group, Boys Choir of Harlem.
Mo Beasley
Tananarive Due
TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s "The Twilight Zone" on Paramount Plus, and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. They also co-wrote their upcoming Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, "Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!"
A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.
Tananarive Due
Tim Fielder
Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has a lifelong love of Visual Afrofuturism, Pulp entertainment, and action films. He holds other Afrofuturists such as Samuel R Delany, Octavia Butler, Pedro Bell, and Overton Loyd as major influences. He is known for the graphic novel, INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale, published by HarperCollins Amistad in 2021 and the Glyph Award winning ‘Matty’s Rocket’.
Tim Fielder
Jewelle Gomez
Jewelle Gomez, (Cabo Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway; she/her), is a novelist, poet, and playwright. Her eight books include four collections of poetry and the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, THE GILDA STORIES. In print for more than 30 years, it was recently optioned by Cheryl Dunye (“Lovecraft Country”) for a TV mini-series.
Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies including: “Red Indian Road West,” “Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora,” “Stories for Skip: A Tribute to Samuel R Delany,” and “Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler.”
Her plays, “Waiting for Giovanni” about James Baldwin and “Leaving the Blues,” about Alberta Hunter, were produced in San Francisco and in New York City.
Her recent collection of poetry, “Still Water,” was published in June 2022. Her new play, “Unpacking in Ptown,” will premiere at New Conservatory Theater, (SF) in Spring of 2024.
In addition to two Lambda Literary Awards she was a 2020 recipient of a Legacy Award from Horror Writers of America.
She was formerly a grant maker for the NY State Council on the Arts as well as the SF Arts Commission, and Horizons Foundation in San Francisco.
TWITTER & Instagram: @VampyreVamp
Jewelle Gomez
DaMaris B. Hill
Dr. DaMaris B. Hill’s most recent book, Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, is deemed “urgent” and “luminous” in a starred Publisher’s Weekly review. Her first book, A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, is a searing and powerful narrative-in-verse that bears witness to American women of color burdened by incarceration. It was an Amazon #1 Best Seller in African American Poetry and a Publishers Weekly Top 10 History Title for the season. Her digital work includes Shut Up In My Bones, a poem that uses “remix/pastiche, intertextuality, and irony as strategies of identity formation to remember and honor a specific cultural past, while at the same time working to construct visions of a better future”.
Similar to her creative process, Hill’s scholarly research is interdisciplinary. Hill’s other books include The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland, the chapbook, \Vi-zə-bəl\ \Teks-chərs\ (Visible Textures). Hill is a Professor of Creative Writing, English, and African American Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Dr. DaMaris B. Hill
Jesse J. Holland
Jesse J. Holland is an award-winning author, journalist and television personality. He is the author of Black Panther: Who Is the Black Panther? novel and the Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Finn’s Story young adult novel. He also is the editor and one of the authors featured in Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda anthology, and the upcoming Captain America: Sam Wilson anthology from Marvel and Titan Books. He also wrote the classic nonfiction books The Invisibles: Untold Stories of African American Slaves in the White House and Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C. Jesse also currently guest hosts C-SPAN’s Washington Journal while working as an opinion columnist for MSNBC.com. He is currently writing and producing his first documentary, as well as working on a new anthology, a new nonfiction book and his first original novel. Jesse was a longtime Race & Ethnicity writer for The Associated Press, as well as serving as a White House, Supreme Court and Congressional reporter. He was one of the few reporters to be a credentialed member of all three members of the major Washington press corps. He is currently an assistant professor at the School of Media & Public Affairs at George Washington University.
Jesse J. Holland
Deirdre Hollman
Deirdre Hollman is a scholar and educator with over twenty years of experience engaging teachers and teens in the study of history, art, and culture. She served as Director of Education and Exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (a division of the New York Public Library) for fifteen years where she created and sustained innovative programs such as the Junior Scholars Program, the Teen Curators Program, the Black History 360° Summer Education Institute, and the Black Comic Book Festival.
A graduate of Princeton University (BA in Art History), Bank Street College (MSEd in Museum Education & Leadership), and Teachers College (EdM in Social Studies Education), she is currently a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on critical social studies curriculum and teaching; historical, racial, and visual literacies; cultural studies; and speculative thought in education. She is an educational consultant specializing in culturally relevant and sustaining curriculum, pedagogy, and instruction for museums, cultural institutions, community-based organizations, and schools serving grades PK to College. She is also the founder of the Black Comics Collective, a cultural, educational, and digital forum for connecting comic creators of color with the youth and communities in New York City. Deirdre and The Black Comics Collective are represented by Serendipity Literary Agency.
Deirdre Hollman
Anita Kopacz
Anita Kopacz is the author of the Simon & Schuster fiction novel, Shallow Waters. It is the second title that Charlemagne tha God released on his imprint, Black Privilege Publishing. Anita is the former Editor-in-Chief of Heart & Soul Magazine and Managing Editor of BeautyCents Magazine. She is an award-winning writer, a Spiritual Psychologist and a certified Tantra coach with a passion to see people thrive. Anita also created the nonprofit, Zero F's Given to raise awareness and help victimized and disenfranchised populations heal from sexual trauma, find their voice, and reclaim their power. She has helped thousands of victims through her work with Zero F’s Given and being on the board for the Center for Safety and Change.
Through leading retreats around the world with The Goddess Wisdom Council, working with private clients and storytelling, Anita fulfills her intention to awaken the divine simplicity, pleasure and joy in her life and others.
Anita Kopacz
Wayétu Moore
Wayétu Moore is the author of She Would Be King, released by Graywolf Press in September 2018. Her memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women was also released with Graywolf on June 2, 2020. She is the recipient of the 2019 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction and the 2022 William Saroyan Prize for Nonfiction.
She Would Be King was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist & Entertainment Weekly. The novel was a Sarah Jessica Parker Book Club selection, a BEA Buzz Panel Book, a #1 Indie Next Pick and a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award. The Dragons, The Giant, The Women was a 2020 New York Times Notable Book, Time Magazine 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020, Publishers Weekly Top 5 Nonfiction Books of 2020, was longlisted for the ALA Andrew Carnegie medal for excellence in nonfiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moore is a graduate of Howard University, University of Southern California and Columbia University.
Wayétu Moore
Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes
Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author of six adult novels: Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass’ Women, Season, Moon, and Hurricane, as well as the memoir Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness, and two writing guides: Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Non-Fiction. Jewell is also the author of seven books for youth including the New York Times bestsellers Ghost Boys and Black Brother, Black Brother. She has won the American Book Award, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, and the Jane Addams Peace Association Book Award.
Jewell is the Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Narrative Studies Professor and Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair at Arizona State University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carnegie-Mellon University. She enjoys teaching, walking her Toy Aussie Sheepdogs, theater, dancing, and music. Born in Pittsburgh, she now lives in Seattle.
Jewell Parker Rhodes
(NBWC2023 Honoree)
Leslye Penelope
Leslye Penelope has been writing since she could hold a pen and loves getting lost in the worlds in her head. Her debut novel Song of Blood & Stone was chosen as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. The novel also won the inaugural award for Best Self-Published Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association before it was picked up for publication by St. Martin’s Press.
She was born in the Bronx, just after the birth of hip hop, but left before she could acquire an accent. Equally left and right-brained, she studied film production at Howard University and minored in computer science. This led to a graduate degree in multimedia and a career in website development. She’s also an award-winning independent filmmaker, co-founded a literary magazine, and sometimes dreams in HTML.
Leslye is an alumna of VONA/Voices and the Hurston/Wright Writers Workshop. She has spoken and taught at conferences and festivals around the country, including the National Book Festival, Baltimore Book Festival, Romance Writers of America, Writers Digest Annual & Novel Writing Conferences, and the Historical Novel Society.
She hosts the My Imaginary Friends podcast and lives in Maryland with her husband and their furry dependents.
Visit her online at http://www.lpenelope.com.
Leslye Penelope
Rasheedah Phillips
Rasheedah Phillips, Esq. is a queer housing advocate, parent, writer, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural producer who uses digital projects, zines, short film, archival practices, experimental non-fiction, speculative fiction, printmaking, performance, social practice, installation and creative research to explore the construct of time, temporalities, and community futurisms through a Black futurist cultural lens and experience. As a housing advocate and attorney, Phillips has led various housing policy campaigns that resulted in significant legislative changes, including a right to counsel for tenants in Philadelphia, and the Renter’s Access Act, one of the strongest laws in the nation to address blanket ban eviction polices having a disparate impact on renters of color. Phillips' writing and artwork has appeared in The Funambulist Magazine, Temple Civil and Political Rights Journal, Next City, Generocity, Fringe Arts Festival Blog, Law and Political Economy blog, Critical Analysis of Law Journal, e-flux Architecture, Flash Art Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, Recess Arts blog, Philadelphia Weekly, Atlanta BlackStar, the books Keywords for Radicals and Organize Your Own, along with other books and publications.
Phillips is the founder of The AfroFuturist Affair, founding member of Metropolarity Queer Speculative Fiction Collective, co-founder of Black Quantum Futurism, co-creator of the award winning Community Futures Lab, and creator of The Time Zone Protocols, Black Women Temporal Portal, and Black Time Belt projects. As part of BQF and as a solo artist, Phillips has been awarded a United States Artists fellowship, Arts at CERN Artists Residency, Vera List Center Fellowship, A Blade of Grass Fellowship, Velocity Fund Fellowship, among others, and has exhibited, presented at, been in residence, and performed at Institute of Contemporary Art London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Serpentine Gallery, Red Bull Arts, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Akademie Solitude, Manifesta 13 Biennale, documenta fifteen, and more.
Rasheedah Phillips
Dr. Edith Rock Writing Workshop for Elders
The Dr. Edith Rock Writing Workshop for Elders celebrated the launching of its fifth volume of Tales of Our Times: An Anthology (The Year 2020: Looking Back for Healing, Looking Forward with Hope) on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, at Medgar Evers College. Contributors who read at the celebration include (left to right): Claudette Joy Spence, Teresa M. Snyder, Glenda Pollard, Shirley V. H. Cooper, Joan Corbett, Ernie Jackson, and Elder Flournoy II.
Dr. Edith Rock Writing Workshop for Elders
Jarvis Sheffield
Jarvis Sheffield is a proud father, husband, member of Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. He has been involved in various forms of multimedia and education for over 30 years. He has done graphic design, web design, video, animation, multimedia, game design, VR/AR and 3D Printing. He has authored technical articles for various publications and taught seminars, workshops, training, and classes on S.T.E.A.M. technology, and education. He holds a BS degree in Interdisciplinary studies from Tennessee State University and earned a Master’s in Education from Trevecca Nazarene University.
He holds leadership positions as:
Coordinator of the Tennessee State University Media Centers
Facilitates the Tennessee State University's MakerSpace Lab
Administrator of Black Science Fiction Society
Director of Dragon Con Diversity Track
Marketing Committee Chair of the Tenn-Share Library Consortium
Publications include:
Genesis Science Fiction Anthologies
Genesis Science Fiction Magazine
Our Heritage Coloring Book Series
Earth Squadron Comic Book Series
jarvissheffield@yahoo.com
www.JarvisSheffield.com
www.BlackScienceFictionSociety.com
Jarvis Sheffield
Christine Taylor-Butler
Christine Taylor-Butler is the author of more than ninety books including the speculative YA/MG series, “The Lost Tribes” (Move Books). A graduate of MIT, she holds degrees in both civil engineering and art & design. She has served as a literary awards judge for PEN America and the Society of Midland Authors and was named Toastmaster for the 2021 World Fantasy Convention. Christine was elected Director-at-Large for Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) and is the Diversity and Inclusion officer for NASFIC 2023 (Winnepeg, Manitoba, CA). She lives in Kansas City, MO.
Christine Taylor-Butler
Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas is a New York Times bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor. A 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, she is the author of Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, a Locus, Ignyte, and World Fantasy Finalist, Marvel’s Black Panther: Panther’s Rage novel, an adaptation of the legendary comics, and she collaborated with Janelle Monáe on the story, “Timebox Altar(ed)” in The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer. She co-edited Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, a NAACP Image Award nominee, and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949. Sheree lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid.
Sheree Renée Thomas
(NBWC2023 Honoree)
Ytasha Womack
Ytasha L. Womack is an award-winning author, director, independent scholar, and dance therapist. Her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture is a 2014 Locus Awards Nonfiction Finalist. Ytasha lectures on Afrofuturism and the imagination for audiences around the world and was a co-curator of Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism Festival in Spring 2022. She’s featured in the documentary Afrofuturism: An Origin Story produced in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Ytasha was an inaugural resident for Black Rock Senegal helmed by artist Kehende Wiley in Dakar and showcasing her zine Liquid at the 2022 Dakar Biennial. Her book Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration for Marvel Entertainment debuts in October 2023 (Quarto) and her debut graphic novel Blak Kube, illustrated by Tanna Tucker, debuts in Fall 2024. Ytasha’s other works include the sci fi novel Rayla 2212, Spaceship in Bronzeville, Post Black, and Beats, Rhymes and Life.
Ytasha Womack
Cathie Wright-Lewis
Brooklyn Speculative Fiction author Cathie Wright-Lewis penned and published Maurya’s Seed- Why Hope Lives Behind Project Walls, Passion’s Pride – Return to the Dawning, Mama Relly and Mama Relly’s Lessons children’s book series and a host of poetry anthologies and short stories. Her allegorical Afrofuturistic works both uncover the history of African Americans in New York City, honors the African ancestors who built the city and those who fought for equality amid centuries of disenfranchisement and massacres.
Written with her students in mind, Wright-Lewis strategically embedded core knowledge of language skills that ordinarily prevent urban students from mastering language and writing skills within her texts. She also uses language and culture that connect students of color and invite them on journeys about their lives.
For over 35 years, Wright-Lewis served Brooklyn youth, adults, and teachers as a high school English teacher, mentor, UFT Teacher-trainer, and English Professor. She continues to serve students through Medgar Evers College’s Center for Black Literature as program director of Re-envisioning Our Lives through Literature (ROLL) and as Executive Director of her non-profit, Power in the Pen Writing Workshop Inc.
Cathie Wright-Lewis
Contact Us
Center for Black Literature
at Medgar Evers College, CUNY (CBL)
1534 Bedford Avenue, 2nd Floor
Brooklyn, New York 11216
Main Phone: (718) 804-8883
Main Office: info@centerforblackliterature.org
PR Office: pr@centerforblackliterature.org
Donate to CBL Today!
To carry out our literary programs and special events, we depend on financial support from the public. Donations are welcome year-round. Click HERE to make a donation today. Thank you in advance!
...
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We're Where You Are!
Get The Latest News!
Sign-up to receive news about our own programs and much more!
Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. | Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.