Ep. 59 DuEwa interviewed Dr. Aria S. Halliday about her latest book, Black Girls and How We Fail Them. Visit www.AriaSHalliday.comfor more information.Follow Nerdacity @nerdacityarts on Instagramand X.com @nerdacitypod1Visit DuEwa's website at DuEwaWorld.comBioAria S. Halliday, Ph.D. holds the Marie Rich Endowed Professorship and is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Halliday is known for her research on the cultural constructions of black girlhood and womanhood in material, visual, and digital culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. She engages broad interdisciplinary interests in Black feminism, art, and performance in Black popular culture in the United States and the Caribbean. Her research is featured in Cultural Studies, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Girlhood Studies, Palimpsest, and SOULS. Her article, “Twerk Sumn!: Theorizing Black Girl Epistemology in the Body” won the 2021 Stuart Hall Foundation x Cultural Studies Award. Her latest book is Black Girls and How We Fail Them published by @UNCPress.

Ep. 58 DuEwa interviewed author and lawyer, Courtney Duke Foster about her novel. Visit www.courtneydukefoster.com for more information.Follow Nerdacity @nerdacityarts on InstagramX.com @nerdacitypod1Visit DuEwa's website at www.duewaworld.comBioCourtney is a lawyer who was bitten by the writer bug almost a decade ago. She has written dozens of poems and short stories. Her short stories have been published in the Bay to Ocean Journal and The Fire Inside, Vol. III. In 2022, Courtney published her debut novel, PASSING NOTES. She published the follow-up novel, RESULTS WILL VARY, in 2024. A graduate of Spelman College and Duke University School of Law, Courtney grew up in Maryland, where she lives with her two awesome daughters. In her spare time, she enjoys writing stories, of course, but also watching movies and attending musicals and comedy shows. She adores the art of storytelling in all forms. She loves writing stories that show the good, the bad, and the wondrous aspects of life and love with characters you wish you could hang out with.

Ep. 57 DuEwa interviewed award winning and New York Times bestselling author Victoria Christopher Murray about her latest book Harlem Rhapsody. Visit www.victoriachristophermurray.com. Follow in Instagram @nerdacityartsFollow on X @nerdacitypod1Listen and subscribe at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.com/DuEwaWorld and more!BioVictoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels. Her novels, The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies, which she co-authored with Marie Benedict were both Instant New York Times bestsellers and her novel, Stand Your Ground won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Fiction. Four of her novels, Lust, Envy, Wrath and Greed have been made into TV movies for Lifetime. Visit her at www.victoriachristophermurray.com.

Ep. 56 DuEwa interviewed poet, writer, publisher, and professor, Roberto Carlos Garcia. Roberto Carlos discussed his latest book, a collection of essays, Traveling Freely (Curbstone Books / Northwestern University Press 2024).Visit www.Roberto Carlos Garcia.comVisit www.duewafrazier.com Follow Nerdacity on IG @nerdacityartsTweet us at X @nerdacitypod1Listen and subscribe to previous episodes at Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts and more!BioRoberto Carlos Garcia is associate professor of English at Union College of Union County NJ. He writes poetry and prose about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-Diasporic experience. His work has been published widely in places like Poetry Magazine, NACLA, Poets & Writers, The Root, and others. Garcia is a 2023 New Jersey State Council of the Arts Poetry Fellow and the author of five books. Four poetry collections: Melancolía (Cervena Barva Press, 2016), black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric (Willow Books, 2018), [Elegies] (Flower Song Press, 2020), What Can I Tell You: Selected Poems (Flower Song Press, 2022), and one essay collection, Traveling Freely, (Curbstone Books / Northwestern University Press 2024). Garcia is the founder of Get Fresh Books Publishing, a literary nonprofit.

Ep 55 DuEwa talked with Dr. Nina Angela Mercer about her work and new book THE DOUBLE. Visit her website at www.NinaAngelaMercer.com.Follow Nerdacity IG @nerdacityarts , X @nerdacitypod1Subscribe and listen to past interviews @Spotify @ApplePodcasts and Youtube.com/DUEWAWORLD.BioNina Angela is a cultural worker and multidisciplinary artist living in Washington, D.C. Nina’s writing is published in The Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online; Break Beat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Press); Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century (Duke University Press); Performance Research Journal (Taylor and Francis); Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People (Bloomsbury Press); So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Press); Black Ecologies Zine (Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice); and tBTR: A Journal of the Black Theatre Network. She is excited about her first collection of writing for performance, The Double: A Choreodrama and a Choreopoem (Kavaya Press).Nina’s choreodramas, choreopoems, and plays include GUTTA BEAUTIFUL(The Warehouse Theatre, The Woolly Mammoth for DC’s Fringe, Abrons Arts Center/Henry Street Settlement, & Little Carib Theatre in Trinidad); ITAGUA MEJI: A Road & A Prayer (Brecht Forum, Alternate Roots, Rutgers University Newark and New Brunswick, The Nuyorican Poets Café); GYPSY & THE BULLY DOOR (The Warehouse Theatre, the former Dumbo Sky); ELIJAHEEN BECOMES WIND (Anacostia Arts Center); CHARISMA AT THE CROSSROADS (Dorothy Young Arts Center); SPARROW(The Langston Hughes House); and A COMPULSION FOR BREATHING (The Schomburg Center and Target Margin Theater). Nina has taught across disciplines at American University, Howard University, Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn College, Drew University, and for the Beyond Identity Program at City College. She is also co-founder and executive director of Ocean Ana Rising, Inc. (OAR) which has been generously funded with grants from the NEA, The Black Seed, and DC’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities.Nina holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). She also holds a Master of Philosophy from The Graduate Center at CUNY, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - Fiction from American University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University. Nina is a mother to two adult daughters who keep her mindful with an ear for new music and language.

Ep. 54 DuEwa interviewed poet, E.J. Antonio. Visit E.J.'s website at E.J. Antonio (ejantoniobluez.net). Follow Nerdacity on Instagram @nerdacitypodcast Follow on X (formerly Twitter) @nerdacitypod1 Bio E.J. Antonio received fellowships in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Cave Canem Foundation. She’s appeared as a featured reader and performer at venues in the NY tri-state area, including Arts Westchester; the Stone; the Hobart Festival of Women Writers, The Vision Festival, Langston Hughes House, the Blue Door Art Gallery, the Untermyer Park Arts Center, and the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at the Pocantico Center. Her work has been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, including: the Encyclopedia Project, African Voices Literary Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, The Mom Egg, Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Taint Taint Taint Magazine, About Place Journal, and arriving at a shoreline an anthology . E.J. is the author of two chapbooks, Every Child Knows (Premier Poets Chapbook Series 2007) and Solstice (Red Glass Books, 2013), and a solo jazz poetry cd Rituals in the marrow: Recipe for a jam session. E.J. is a founding Board Member of the non-profit Arts organization One Breath Rising, and a founding member of the improvisation group, The Jazz & Poetry Choir Collective, which released its debut cd We Were Here in April 2020.

Ep. 53 DuEwa interviewed M. Nzadi Keita about her new poetry collection, Migration Letters (2024, Beacon Press). Visit M. Nzadi Keita: Poems and Prose (zeekeita.com). Listen to this ep and past Nerdacity eps at Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, Podcast Addict and more! Follow IG @nerdacitypodcast X twitter.com/nerdacitypod1 Subscribe YouTube.com/duewaworld BIO M. Nzadi Keita is a first-generation urban northerner. Her first book of poems, Birthmarks, was published by Nightshade Press. Her work has since appeared on public television, and in anthologies including Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry in the 21st Century, and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Her poems appear in MELUS, Poet Lore, and Crab Orchard, among other journals. Grants and fellowships from Yaddo, Fine Arts Work Center, Leeway Foundation, and the Pew Center for Arts and Humanities have supported her writing and community-based arts adventures.   Keita served as an adviser to the documentary, “BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez.” Her essays on Sanchez appear in Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in The 1960s and the anthology, Peace Is A Haiku Song (Mural Arts Press).    She has collaborated with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, WHYY-TV/ Philadelphia, the Rosenbach Museum, Moonstone Arts Center, Germantown Arts Roundtable, and other initiatives. Keita is a Cave Canem alum and a professor of creative writing and literature at Ursinus College.

Ep 52 DuEwa interviewed poet Steven Leyva about his book The Understudy's Handbook. IG @nerdacitypodcast Twitter @nerdacitypod1 YouTube.com/DuEwaworld Bio Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, is forthcoming from Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design.

Ep. 51 ⁠DuEwa⁠ interviewed author ⁠Courtney Thorsson⁠ about her new book, The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture (2024). Visit Courtney's website at ⁠www.CourtneyThorsson.com.⁠ Follow Nerdacity on IG @nerdacitypodcast and DuEwa IG @drduewawrites. www.duewaworld.com Tweet and follow on X @nerdacitypod1. Fan/follow Nerdacity on Facebook. Donate to Paypal.me/duewaworld  Bio ⁠Courtney Thorsson⁠ is an associate professor at the University of Oregon, where she teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature. Her first book ⁠Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels⁠ argues that Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, and Toni Morrison reclaim and revise cultural nationalism in their novels of the 1980s and 90s. Her writing has appeared in publications including Callaloo; African American Review; MELUS; Gastronomica; Contemporary Literature; Legacy; and Public Books. Her new book, ⁠The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture⁠ tells the story of how a remarkable community of Black women writers and intellectuals transformed political, literary, and academic cultures. She is the recipient of a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the research and writing of The Sisterhood.  

EP 50 DuEwa interviewed poet, Roberto Carlos Garcia about his latest book, What Can I Tell You? Selected Poems (Dec 2022). Visit www.robertocarlosgarcia.com. Visit www.duewafrazier.com. Instagram @nerdacitypodcast Twitter @nerdacitypod1 Facebook Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE>>Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, iHeartRadio & More! Watch DuEwa's recent podcast videos and interviews at YouTube.com/DUEWAWORLD Support https://PayPal.me/DuEwaWorld Thanks for listening! BIO Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia is a self-described “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists.” Garcia is rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, conveying “nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience,” and he writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. Roberto's third collection, [Elegies], is published by Flower Song Press and his second poetry collection, black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric, is available from Willow Books.  Roberto’s first collection, Melancolía, is available from Červená Barva Press. His poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, The BreakBeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3, The Root, Those People, Rigorous, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Gawker, Barrelhouse, The Acentos Review, Lunch Ticket, and many others.He is founder of the cooperative press Get Fresh Books Publishing, A NonProfit Corp.A native New Yorker, Roberto holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.