RANE ARROYO was a poet, playwright, and professor. He received his PhD in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and taught at the University of Toledo until his unexpected death in 2010. His poetry collections include, The Singing Shark, Home Movies of Narcissus, The Portable Famine, Same-Sex Seances, The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems, and The Sky’s Weight. He also published a book of stories, How to Name a Hurricane, and several plays.
A. H. JERRIOD AVANT is from Longtown, MS. A graduate of Jackson State University, he’s earned MFA degrees from Spalding University and New York University. An Affrilachian Poet and graduate of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, his poems have appeared in the Mississippi Review, Boston Review, pluck!, Pinwheel and Callaloo. A finalist for the 2015 Mississippi Review Prize, Jerriod is the 2016–2017, 2nd-year Poetry Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
MAKALANI BANDELE has received fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, Cave Canem, and Millay Colony. He is member of the Affrilachian Poets. His work has been published in several anthologies, and in many in print and online in literary magazines. He is the author of one book of poems, hellfightin’ (Willow Books, 2012).
REMICA BINGHAM-RISHER earned an MFA from Bennington College, is a Cave Canem fellow and a member of the Affrilachian Poets. Her first book, Conversion (Lotus, 2006), won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. Her second book, What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan, 2013), was shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her third book, Starlight & Error (Diode, 2017), won the Diode Editions Book Award.
BERNARD CLAY is a Kentucky native raised mostly in Louisville. He currently lives in Frankfort with his wife and dog where he is pursuing a MFA in poetry from the University of Kentucky. He is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and his work has appeared in journals and other publications.
GERALD L. COLEMAN, cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets, studied Philosophy, English, and Religious Studies, culminating in a MA in Theology. Author of the fantasy novel, When Night Falls: Book One of The Three Gifts, and poetry collections, the road is long and falling to earth, you can find him at geraldlcoleman.co.
MITCHELL L. H. DOUGLAS, Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, a Cave Canem Fellow, and poetry editor for pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture. His second poetry collection \blak\ \al-fə bet\, winner of the 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award, is available from Persea Books. His debut collection, Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem, was a runner-up for the 2007 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, a semifinalist for the 2007 Blue Lynx Prize, and a semifinalist for the 2006 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. In 2010, Cooling Board was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry category and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
KELLY NORMAN ELLIS, author of Tougaloo Blues (2003) and Offerings of Desire (2012). Her poetry has appeared in Sisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry, Spirit and Flame, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, Boomer Girls, Essence Magazine, Obsidian, Calyx, and Cornbread Nation. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women writer’s grant and is a Cave Canem fellow and founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Ellis is an associate professor of English and creative writing and chairperson for the Department of English, Foreign Languages and Literatures at Chicago State University.
NIKKY FINNEY was born in South Carolina, within listening distance of the sea. A child of activists, she came of age during the civil rights and Black Arts Movements. At Talladega College, nurtured by Hale Woodruff’s Amistad murals, Finney began to understand the powerful synergy between art and history. Finney has authored four books of poetry: Head Off & Split (2011); The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). The John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina, Finney also authored Heartwood (1997), edited The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007), and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets. Finney’s fourth book of poetry, Head Off & Split, was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for poetry.
ASHA FRENCH is a poet and essayist. She writes about parenting her favorite daughter, mourning her favorite father, and learning how to love women in ways that heal. She has a spirit guide in the person of a five year old daughter who loves bats. Her work has appeared in pluck!, PoetryMemoirStory, Emory Magazine, Mutha Magazine, Women’s Media Project, and Autostraddle. She is a former columnist for Ebony.com and is currently looking for a home for her collection of essays.
CRYSTAL DAWN GOOD was born on a clear morning. She is a Writer Poet. Quantum Christian. Tunk Player. Libra Charmer. Underdog Cheerleader. Dethroned Affrilachian Homecoming Queen. Occasionally she performs with Heroes Are Gang Leaders, a New York-based Free/Avant-Garde experimental improvisation ensemble. She was elected in 2014 to the made-up-but-completely-real office of Social Media Senator for the Digital District of West Virginia. “Senator Good” uses poetry and performance to explore the landscape of West Virginia aka The Heart of Appalachia as a lens into the meta-universe. Crystal is the author of Valley Girl.
ELLEN HAGAN is a writer, performer, and educator. Her latest collection of poetry Hemisphere, was published by Northwestern University Press, Spring 2015. Her first collection of poetry, Crowned was published by Sawyer House Press in 2010. Ellen recently joined the poetry faculty at West Virginia Wesleyan in their low-residency MFA program. She is the Director of Poetry and Theatre Programs at the DreamYard Project in the Bronx and directs their International Poetry Exchange with school partners in Japan and South Korea. She lives with her husband and daughters in New York City.
DORIAN HAIRSTON is a poet, scholar, and former college athlete from Lexington, KY. He is an Affrilachian Poet and his work has appeared in pluck!, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and Shale. He currently lives in Lexington where he is completing his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky.
RANDALL HORTON is the author of three collections of poetry and most recently, Hook: A Memoir (Augury Books 2015). He is an Affrilachian Poet, a member of the experimental performance group, ‘Heroes Are Gang Leaders,’ and Associate Professor of English at the University of New Haven.
AMANDA JOHNSTON earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Kinfolks Quarterly, Muzzle, pluck! and the anthologies, Small Batch, di-ver-city and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. The recipient of multiple Artist Enrichment grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, she is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. Johnston is a Stonecoast MFA faculty member, a co-founder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founding executive director of Torch Literary Arts.
NORMAN JORDAN, a native of Ansted, West Virginia, co-founded the African-American Heritage Family Tree Museum and the African American Arts and Heritage Academy. His poetry has been anthologized in many books, including, Make a Joyful Sound: Poems for Children by African-American Poets, In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry and Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry.
SHAYLA LAWSON is (and / or, at times, has been) an amateur acrobat, an architect, a Dutch housewife, & dog mother to one irascible hound. Her work has appeared in print and online at ESPN, The Offing, Guernica, Colorado Review, Barrelhouse, The Journal, South Dakota Review, Winter Tangerine Review, 111O, inter\rupture, pluck!, Indiana Review, & MiPOesias (among others). She is the former Nonfiction Editor of Indiana Review, the inaugural winner of Sou’Wester’s Robbins Award in Poetry, honorably mentioned in the back of the 2016 Pushcart Anthology, & author of three poetry collections: A Speed Education in Human Being, PANTONE, & the forthcoming I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean. Her work has been supported by fellowships provided through Callaloo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice, Italy, & The Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Raised somewhere between the tobacco fields and horse farms of Woodford County, Kentucky, JUDE McPHERSON has been bending and stretching syllables as long as he can remember. A member of the Affrilachian Poets, his first full length collection of poetry ‘on my mind’ is a reflection of his eclectic personality. He has published two previous collections of poetry through blacoetry press; loves taxicab blues revisited (1998) and the book of jude(2000).
MARTA MARIA MIRANDA-STRAUB is Afro-Caribbean and identifies as “Cubalachian”: Cuban by birth and Appalachian by the Grace of God. She has a forty year career as a social worker, educator, scholar, administrator, activist and community organizer. Her life focus has been the promotion of equity and social justice. She writes about issues of identity and place, she is a published author, poet and story-teller, Marta was inducted into the Affrilachian Poets in 2006. She is currently working on her memoir, Cradled by Skeletons: A Life in Poems.
KAMILAH AISHA MOON is a recipient of fellowships to the Cave Canem Foundation, the Prague Summer Writing Institute, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Vermont Studio Center, Moon’s work has been featured in several journals and anthologies, including Harvard Review, jubilat, Poem-A-Day for the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, Lumina, Callaloo, Essence, Gathering Ground. A Pushcart Prize winner, she was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Audre Lorde Award from the Publishing Triangle. She has taught English and Creative Writing for several colleges and organizations. Moon holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. A native of Nashville, TN, she currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
A poet and scholar, SHAUNA M. MORGAN, PH.D. is the author of Fear of Dogs & Other Animals and she teaches literature of the African Diaspora at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Her current research focuses on representations of Black womanhood and Neo-anticolonialism in 21st century literature. Her poems have appeared in ProudFlesh: New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness, Anthology of Appalachian Writers Volume VI, Interviewing the Caribbean, and elsewhere. Her critical work can be found in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, and South Atlantic Review.
RICARDO NAZARIO Y COLÓN is the author of The Recital from Winged City Chapbooks 2011 and Of Jibaros and Hillbillies from Plain View Press 2011. Visit him at http://www.lalomadelviento.com.
JEREMY PADEN is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY. and he teaches literary translation in Spalding University’s low-residency MFA. He received his PhD in Colonial Latin American literature from Emory University. He is the author of two chapbooks of poems: Broken Tulips (Accents Publishing, 2013) and ruina montium (Broadstone Press, 2016). He is also the author a chapbook of translated poems: Delicate Matters (Winged City Chapbooks, 2016).
JOY PRIEST is a writer from Louisville, Kentucky. She is the winner of the 2016 Hurston/Wright Foundation’s College Writers Award, and a 2015 Kentucky Arts Council Emerging Artist Award. Joy has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the University of South Carolina where she is a writing instructor and MFA candidate in poetry. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Best New Poets 2014 & 2016, The BreakBeat Poets, Blackbird, Callaloo, Drunken Boat, and Muzzle, among others.
STEPHANIE PRUITT is a poet and social practice artist who has taught at Vanderbilt University, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and as a visiting artist in over one hundred K-12 and community settings. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and Essence Magazine named her one of their “40 Favorite Poets.” Stephanie serves as a Commissioner for Metro Arts and on the board of directors for the Arts & Business Council. She prefers flip flops over stilettos, pancakes over waffles, and the toilet paper is always over, not under. When at her Nashville home, the mother of Nia and wife of Al can often be found with an 70lb dog in her lap. The TEDx speaker is the founder of NoStarvingArtist(dot)me and is committed to helping creators make a LIFE and LIVING with their art.
DANNI QUINTOS is a knitter and a Kentuckian. She received her MFA in Poetry from Indiana University, where she taught Creative Writing and served as an Associate Poetry Editor for Indiana Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Day One, pluck!, Anthropoid, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, Best New Poets 2015 and elsewhere. She lives in Lexington with her husband Zach and their Ren & Stimpy cat-dog duo. Rumor has it, she is knitting a cocoon, from which she will emerge when her first book manuscript is finished.
SHANNA L. SMITH is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages at Jackson State University. She earned her doctorate in American Studies, specializing in African American Literature and Culture, at the University of Maryland College Park. A native of Kentucky, Smith is an Affrilachian Poet.
BIANCA LYNNE SPRIGGS is an award-winning writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, Kentucky. The author of four collections of poetry, her most recent are Call Her By Her Name (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and The Galaxy Is a Dance Floor (Argos Books, 2016). She is the managing editor for pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and the poetry editor for Apex Magazine. You can learn more about her work at: www.biancaspriggs.com
PAUL C. TAYLOR teaches philosophy and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University. His scholarly books include On Obama and Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics. He is also an Affrilachian Poet, with short stories and poetry in Limestone, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere.
Multidisciplinary artist and Danville, Kentucky native, FRANK X WALKER, is the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky and Professor in the department of English and African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. The founding editor of pluck! is a Cave Canem fellow, co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and the author of eight collections of poetry.
CRYSTAL WILKINSON is the author of Blackberries, Blackberries, winner of the 2002 Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature and Water Street, a finalist for both the UK’s Orange Prize for Fiction and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Both books are published by Toby Press. She is also the recipient of awards and fellowships from The Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Kentucky Arts Council, The Mary Anderson Center for the Arts and the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Scholarship Fund at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She currently teaches at Berea College. Her novel, The Birds of Opulence, was the 2016 recipient of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. She and her partner, artist Ron Davis, are the owners of an independent bookstore, The Wild Fig.
KEITH S. WILSON is an Affrilachian Poet, Cave Canem fellow, and graduate of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He has received three scholarships from Bread Loaf and scholarships from the Millay Colony, MacDowell, and Ucross. Keith serves as assistant poetry editor at Four Way Review and digital media editor at Obsidian Journal.
Born in Banner Elk, NC, FORREST GRAY YERMAN is an independent scholar whose work focuses on the Affrilachian Poets. He holds an MA in Appalachian Studies and a BA in Creative Writing, both from Appalachian State University. He has published in Appalachian Journal, Valley Voices, and the Mildred Haun Review.