Michael Datcher: James Baldwin's nonfiction, Gloria Naylor's fiction and Kaman Daaood's poetry has shaped me the most.
Mat Johnson: Joseph Heller, Martin Amis, Ellison, Bob Marley and Bruce Lee. The first two for their eye for humor in the absurd; the third one for that and also for being to the first black writer to not only “go there,” but go beyond, blazing a way for me to follow; the last two for their driven creative energy, for being so original they created myths and genres in their wake.
Kayla Perrin: This is a hard question for me to answer. Truly, I was born to write, and have been doing so since I could hold a pencil. Yes, I love to read --- and I read a variety of authors --- but I can't say any of them influenced me in my writing. I've always had stories in my head.
Monique Morris: Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston...How I aspire!
Marissa Monteilh: I've always enjoyed John Grisham novels. His writings are excellent examples of showing the reader as opposed to telling. He is very talented. It is no wonder that many of his titles have been brought to the big screen. But the most influential author for me has been Terry McMillan. Personally, I have been able to relate to the themes of her titles, and also relate to her as an author who has walked the road that I've yet to travel. Her personal story from her first writing, up until today, is motivating and inspirational.
Tonya Bolden: Baldwin. Morrison. Chekhov. Hemingway. Toni Cade Bambara. Charles Johnson. Flannery O'Connor. And Dr. Seuss: there are telltale signs of that sense of whimsy and fantastic nonsense in some of my work.
Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant: Both of us can trace our literary influences back as far as fairy tales and reading has been a part of our lives for as long as we can remember. But if you want us to be specific...
Donna Grant: I always find this question difficult because my influences are disparate and vary in weight depending on the day. Ntozake Shange, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer are a few.
Virginia DeBerry: It's all over the place --- Richard Wright, J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Irving, J. California Cooper, Amy Tan, Zora Neale Hurston, Homer, Thomas Malory (The Arthurian legends).
Jabari Asim: I have many, including Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Henry Dumas, Robert Hayden, W.E.B. DuBois, Cynthia Ozick and Isaiah Berlin.
Maryann Reid: Sorry, I have none. But I like Shay Youngblood and Colin Channer's latest works.
Natasha Tarpley: My literary influences are many and ever-changing. I find that I go to different authors and sources based on what I'm working on. When I'm trying to get ideas, I read a lot of nonfiction. When I'm trying to figure out how to tell a story, I read novelists and some poets, Lucille Clifton is a favorite. I am also very influenced by music-jazz and world music especially, and nature-looking trees, the way that light reflects on the street and people's faces. I just try to stay open. Everyone and everything has something to offer.
Afi Scruggs: I've looked to Lucille Clifton, especially her book, Generations. I read the Russian short story writer Anton Chekhov for strong, translucent prose. I like Langston Hughes' sense of humor and the columns of former New York Times writer Anna Quindlen for description and a sense of place.
Myles Pinkney and Sandra Pinkney: Mildred Taylor, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. Photographically - Gordon Parks.
Steven Barnes: I'm an adventure writer: Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Leslie Charteris, Peter O'Donnell have all been terrific influences. On the more literary side, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe. I love Octavia Butler and Samuel Delaney.
Kim McLarin: They run the gamut from James Baldwin to Graham Green to Toni Morrison to Raymond Carver. There are so many incredible writers in the world. I would love to be able to write like so many of them.
William Jelani Cobb: The major influence in terms of nonfiction is James Baldwin. For me his relentless truth-telling and those gleaming, multi-hinged sentences are the gold standard. He has a line in The Evidence of Things Not Seen where he says that "The United States is located somewhere between the Statue of Liberty and the Pillar of Salt." And I think that was the one of the most precise readings of the American circumstance I've ever heard. After him there are a number of people: Murray Kempton, Stanley Crouch, Pete Hamill who appeal to me more because of their aesthetic than their content. But Baldwin is the central influence.
Michele Andrea Bowen: I have an interdisciplinary academic and professional background. I have been influenced by many writers, fiction and nonfiction. I studied under Marita Golden for a semester, have been strongly encouraged by Daryl Dance who edited the anthology, Honey Hush!, participated in workshops with David Bradley, and another author, G. C. "Pete" Hendricks, and read a lot, across disciplines. There are a lot of fiction writers, whose work I thoroughly enjoy, and learn from.
Phyllis Y. Harris: There are so many. I like old writers, but am particularly enjoying Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner, W. Somerset Maugham, Annie Dillard among others.
Raymond A. Winbush: Unquestionably Richard Wright, Toni Morrison and Frances Cress-Welsing. I read Wright's Black Boy in the 8th or 9th grade and was determined that I would make writing a significant portion of my life. Toni Morrison is simply the most sublime writer in the English language. Each of her sentences are like recovered diamonds from the ancestral memory mines of Africa. I simply love Beloved and "anything" that Ms. Morrison does. She has stayed "true to the game" of making sure that her readers enter into the world of African people if they want to understand the experience. Welsing's analysis of white supremacy is simply profound and answers for me why the world is the way it is relative to racism.
Alexs Pate: James Baldwin, Charles Johnson, John Wideman, Ishmael Reed, Richard Wright, Anton Chekov, D. H. Lawrence, William Melvin Kelly, John A. Williams, John O. Killens, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Alice Walker and Jean Toomer (just to name a handful).
Francis Ray: J. California Cooper is a fabulous writer. I also enjoy the works of Eric Jerome Dickey, Yolanda Joe, Connie Briscoe, Kimberly Lawson Roby and Diane McKinney-Whetstone.
