• Jenoyne Adams
• Stanice Anderson
• Harriette Cole
• Nikki Giovanni
• Nalo Hopkinson
• Victor LaValle
• Benilde Little
• More Authors...

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Black History Month Author Roundtable In honor of Black History Month AuthorsOnTheWeb.com presents a diverse author roundtable featuring 13 popular writers of fiction and nonfiction. Jenoyne Adams, Stanice Anderson, Harriette Cole, Nikki Giovanni, Nalo Hopkinson, Victor LaValle, Benilde Little, Marcus Major, Diane McKinney-Whetstone, Stephanie Perry Moore, Y. Blak Moore, Ray Shannon, and Olympia Vernon discuss how race influences their work, readers who have touched them and the business of being published.

Jenoyne Adams Jenoyne Adams, author of Selah's Bed and the critically-acclaimed, bestselling novel Resurrecting Mingus (The Free Press, February 2001), is a dancer, poet and journalist. A PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow and UCLA Extension Writing Program Community Access Scholar, Jenoyne has been featured in programs at the the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Essence Music Festival, the National Black Arts Festival, the Mark Taper Auditorium, the Schomburg Museum and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. She is a writing consultant for Voices In Harmony, an organization that helps at risk and under-served youth write and produce theatre pieces around important social issues each year. Miss Adams has written for the Precinct Reporter, the largest African-American newspaper in San Bernardino County, the TriCounty Bulletin, a weekly serving the Orange County area. Her work has been published in Sorient Journal; Drumvoices Revue (Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Press, 2000); Brown Sugar II (Simon & Schuster 2003), Roll Call (Third World Press, 2002) Catch The Fire: A Cross-Generational Anthology of African American Literature (Putnam, 1998) as well as other publications. She is currently working on her third novel. Photo © Michael Datcher Simon & Schuster Browse Jenoyne Adams' books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Stanice Anderson Stanice Anderson is a public speaker, businesswoman, and recovery counselor trainer. The author of 12-Step Programs: A Resource Guide for Helping Professionals, as well as the e-mail series "Food for the Spirit and Power Moments with God", she has appeared on The 700 Club. She lives in Maryland. Stanice Anderson's Website Walk Worthy Press Browse Stanice Anderson's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Harriette Cole Harriette Cole is the author of How to Be: A Guide to Contemporary Living, as well as the best-selling Jumping the Broom: The African-American Wedding Planner and its companion volume, Jumping the Broom Wedding Workbook. As founder of profundities, inc., a style, life-coaching and literary production company, she has worked with such clients as Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, and Erykah Badu. A former editor at Essence, she writes a New York Daily News advice column, "Sense & Sensitivity" nationally syndicated by United Feature Syndicate. Cole currently serves as guest editor of American Legacy Woman, a national heritage and culture publication targeted to African American women. She has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "The View," "The Today Show," and "The Early Show" and been featured in such publications as O: The Oprah Magazine, InStyle, Self, Glamour, Brides, and Modern Bride. She lives in Harlem in New York City with her husband, fashion and beauty photographer George Chinsee. Photo © George Chinsee Harriette Cole's Website (Coming Soon) Simon & Schuster Browse Harriette Cole's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Nikki Giovanni When Nikki Giovanni's poems first emerged during the Civil Rights, Black Power and Black Arts Movements in the 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and influential poets of the era. Now, more than 30 years later, Nikki Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape. Poet, activist, mother and professor Nikki Giovanni was born June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee. While a student at Fisk University, she re-established the campus's Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chapter in 1965. In New York, 1968, after studying at University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Work and Columbia University's School of Fine Arts and, she self-published her first volume of poetry Black Feeling, Black Talk. Over the span of 30 years as a poet, Ms. Giovanni has received nineteen honorary degrees from colleges and universities including, Fisk University, Smith College, Indiana University, Delaware State University, and University of Maryland. Her numerous awards include Woman of the Year for Ebony, Mademoiselle, Essence, and Ladies Home Journal magazines; YWCA Woman of the Year, Cincinnati Chapter; Outstanding Woman of Tennessee Award; Ohio Women's Hall of Fame induction; Distinguished Recognition Award, Detroit City Council; McDonald's Literary Achievement Award for Poetry presented in the name of Nikki Giovanni in perpetuity; Outstanding Humanitarian Award, The House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky; two Tennessee Governor's Award in the Arts and in the Humanities; the Virginia Governor's Award; and two NAACP Image Awards for Love Poems and Blues: For All the Changes. Ms. Giovanni has been given the keys to more than a dozen cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, New Orleans, and Baltimore. Most recently, she was named the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award. Nikki Giovanni is the author of 16 books of poetry for adults and children including the seminal Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement, Re: Creation, My House, The Women and the Men, Those Who Ride the Night Winds, The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni, Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes and her most recent: Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea. Nikki is University Distinguished Professor/English at Virginia Tech. She continues to read her work all over the country. HarperCollins Browse Nikki Giovanni's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Nalo Hopkinson My late father was a Guyanese poet, playwright, actor. He acted in Derek Walcott's Trinidad Theatre Workshop, whose play "Ti-Jean and His Brothers" I reference throughout Brown Girl in the Ring. I recently discovered that in 1969, Daddy performed "Ti-Jean and His Brothers" on CBC Radio, playing all the parts. I'm now trying to find a recording of that performance. It would be nice to have a copy of it. One of Daddy's best-known poems in the Caribbean was "Madwoman of Papine." It's a solemn, classically-structured piece about a bag lady who used to live in Kingston, Jamaica. She wore the same dress year in, year out, and would have screaming fights with the air. In the poem, Daddy describes her, then talks ironically about how an old, mad homeless woman will not be considered appropriate subject matter for the lofty art of poetry: Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be, Advised that if I valued poetry,I should eschew all sociology. It tickles me then that Slade Hopkinson's daughter has become a writer of science fiction, a literature known for its critiques of social systems. I quoted from "Madwoman of Papine" in Brown Girl in the Ring. The character of Crazy Betty reminded me of Daddy's poem. It's a thrill to be able to see his writing in print next to mine. I started writing fiction in 1993, the same year that Daddy died. Science fiction writer Judy Merril was going to teach a course in writing at Ryerson University in Toronto, where I live. In order to be placed in the class, you had to submit samples of your writing so that Judy could assemble a group of people who were all writing at more or less the same level of skill. I had not written any fiction at that point, but I admired Judy and wanted the chance to be taught by her. I cobbled together an unfinished six pages of something about a shy young woman who has visions and is trying to hide that fact from the people around her. I had no idea what I was writing or how to shape it. Other people handed in complete short stories. The class never ran. There wasn't enough registration. But as she was want to do, Judy met with the handful of us who were interested, and showed us how to run our own writing group. "You don't really need me," she said. "Once you know how to do this, you can learn from each other." Without Judy, we started meeting and exchanging our manuscripts for critiquing every few weeks. Three of us are left from that original group. We've all had work published now, and two more people have joined the group. I worked the piece I had submitted to Judy up to about ten thousand words, realized it was a novel, and panicked. I knew that I didn't yet have the skills to handle something in such a long form. In 1995, I attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at Michigan State University, where I concentrated on learning how to write short fiction. When I returned from Clarion, I heard about the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. I submitted my incomplete ten thousand word manuscript to Warner, figuring it would get turned down. Two weeks later I got a letter back from Warner: "Send us the whole novel to be forwarded to the second round of the competition--no drafts, please." !!!!!! I wrote for two months solid, workshopping the manuscript every two weeks with my writing group. I discarded whole story lines when they became too complicated to pursue in the short time I had. I finished the manuscript the day before the January 31 deadline for submissions to the contest. I had no time to workshop the last bit with my group, I just printed it up, sent it off, and went to bed. Six months later, Betsy Mitchell from Warner Aspect phoned me to tell me that I had won. Writing a novel feels like wrestling a mattress, but it's been a fun, exhilarating process. Nalo Hopkinson's Website Warner Aspect Browse Nalo Hopkinson's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Victor LaValle Victor LaValle is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, winner of the PEN Open Book award. He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has also been awarded the key to Southeastern Queens. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing at Columbia University. Crown Browse Victor LaValle's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. Benilde Little Benilde Little is the bestselling author of Good Hair, which was selected as one of the ten best books of 1996 by the Los Angeles Times, and The Itch. She lives in a suburb of New York City with her husband and two children. Acting Out tells the story of a woman caught between the life she thought she was supposed to lead and the dreams she gave up long ago. Photo © Wendy Rountree Benilde Little's Website Simon & Schuster Browse Benilde Little's books on Amazon.com. Back to top. • More Authors... © Copyright 2003, AuthorsOnTheWeb.com. All rights reserved.

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