Remica Bingham-Risher is a poet, interviewer and essayist, a Cave Canem fellow and Affrilachian Poet. Her book, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions That Grew Me Up, was published by Beacon Press in September 2022. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Writer’s Chronicle, Callaloo, Essence and a host of other outlets. She is the author of Conversion, winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award; What We Ask of Flesh, shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Starlight & Error, winner of the Diode Editions Book Award and a finalist for the Library of Virginia Book Award. She is the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives, which help faculty integrate writing into the classroom, at Old Dominion University. She resides in Norfolk, Virginia with her husband and children. -----  The Hurston/Wright Foundation presents The Black Writer’s Studio, a podcast dedicated to showcasing Black Writers who are transforming the world today with their literary pen. Host Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman interviews novelists, poets, scholars, screenwriters and more.  Visit us at http://www.HurstonWright.org to learn more about Hurston Wright Foundation.   Available on Anchor FM, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Elizabeth Alexander is a decorated poet, educator, memoirist, scholar, and cultural advocate. She is president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation's largest funder in arts and culture, and humanities in higher education.   Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Alexander served as the director of Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation, shaping Ford's grantmaking vision in arts and culture, journalism, and documentary film.  There, she co-designed the Art for Justice Fund—an initiative that uses art and advocacy to address the crisis of mass incarceration—and guided the organization in examining how the arts and visual storytelling can empower communities. Over the course of a distinguished career in education, Dr. Alexander has taught and inspired a generation of students. She was the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University from 2015 until joining the Foundation in 2018. Between 2000 and 2015, Dr. Alexander taught at Yale University, where she was a professor in the departments of African American Studies, American Studies, and English, helping rebuild the school's African American Studies department while serving as its chair for four years.  In 2015, she was appointed Yale University's inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. At Smith College, Dr. Alexander was the Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and the inaugural director of the Poetry Center. While an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, she was awarded the Quantrell Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. An author or co-author of fifteen books, Dr. Alexander was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize: for poetry with American Sublime and for biography with her 2015 memoir, The Light of the World.  Her poetry and essays include Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 (2010), Power and Possibility: Essays, Reviews, Interviews (2007), American Sublime (2005), The Black Interior: Essays (2004), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), Body of Life (1996), and The Venus Hottentot (1990). Accolades for her work include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the George Kent Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and three Pushcart Prizes for Poetry.  In 2009, Dr. Alexander composed and delivered a poem, "Praise Song for the Day," for President Barack Obama's inauguration. Her latest book, released in 2022, is The Trayvon Generation. Dr. Alexander earned a BA from Yale University, an MA from Boston University, and a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She holds honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Yale University, Haverford College, Simmons College, and the College of St. Benedict. Dr. Alexander is Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the board of the Pulitzer Prize.  This episode is hosted by prolific author and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller, a member of Hurston/Wright's Advisory Board. The episode was produced in celebration of the annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards.  ---  The Hurston/Wright Foundation presents The Black Writer’s Studio, a podcast dedicated to showcasing Black Writers who are transforming the world today with their literary pen. Host Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman interviews novelists, poets, scholars, screenwriters and more. Visit us at http://www.HurstonWright.org to learn more about Hurston Wright Foundation. Available on Anchor FM, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Ella Baker famously said, “Give light, and people will find the way.” And, oh, how that light is so necessary today more than ever.    This year, the Hurston/Wright Foundation's board of directors has selected Keeangha-Yamahtta Taylor as the recipient of the Hurston/Wright Ella Baker award. The board believes that Dr. Taylor has shone her light in ways that have transformed communities, informed the general public and brilliantly advocated for equity and inclusion for the disenfranchised nationally and globally. The Ella Baker Award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, Ella Baker, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice. Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a scholar of anti-Black racism, public policy, radical politics and social movements. She has written three award-winning books, including Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, which was a semi-finalist for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2020.   Dr. Taylor is also a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021. She received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 2021, as well.  She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and for eight years, was professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is currently a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University.  This episode was produced in celebration of the annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. --  The Hurston/Wright Foundation presents The Black Writer’s Studio, a podcast dedicated to showcasing Black Writers who are transforming the world today with their literary pen. Host Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman interviews novelists, poets, scholars, screenwriters and more. Visit us at http://www.HurstonWright.org to learn more about Hurston Wright Foundation.    Available on Anchor FM, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

The Hurston/Wright Foundation's Madam C.J. Walker Award recognizes exceptional innovation in supporting and sustaining Black literature. Named for the feisty and entrepreneurial Madam CJ Walker, the award recognizes a person or organization that is integral to the lifeblood of Black culture. Madam CJ Walker famously exclaimed, “My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others.” This year’s recipient has certainly succeeded on that front. The Madam CJ Walker 2022 honoree is Ron Kavanaugh. Ron Kavanaugh is a literary activist.  He is the founder of the Bronx-based Literary Freedom Project, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt not-for-profit arts organization that supports the literary arts through education, creative thinking, and new media. LFP believes that cultural identity is a fundamental cornerstone in the development of smart, creative, and engaged communities. Towards this goal, LFP also develops literature-based lesson plans and hosts the Mosaic Literary Conference, an annual literature-education event.  In 1998, Literary Freedom Project (LFP), launched Mosaic Literary Magazine, a print tri-annual that explores the literary arts by writers of African descent, and features interviews, essays, and book reviews. Born and raised in the Bronx, Ron has worked with numerous arts organizations including The Bronx Museum of the Arts and En Foco, Inc. In 2017, he organized the exhibition Black Documents, which featured Jamel Shabazz plus five emerging local photographers. Kavanaugh has hosted book discussions with a wide variety of authors including Marlon James, Tayari Jones, Angie Cruz, and Nicole Dennis Benn among others. In 2021, he coordinated in collaboration with the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College, the New York City presentation of Lift Every Voice: Why African American Poetry Matters, a yearlong national public humanities initiative sponsored by the Library of America and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Recently, he was featured in the New York Times for the exhibit "Swagger and Tenderness: The South Bronx Portraits by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres." He co-curated the exhibit with Amy Rosenblum Martín for the The Bronx Museum of the Arts. This special edition of The Black Writer's Studio podcast is hosted by Troy Johnson of AALBC.com. Troy and Ron share a unique history within the Black literary arts landscape that spans almost 30 years.  ---  The Hurston/Wright Foundation presents The Black Writer’s Studio, a podcast dedicated to showcasing Black Writers who are transforming the world today with their literary pen. Host Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman interviews novelists, poets, scholars, screenwriters and more.  Visit us at http://www.HurstonWright.org to learn more about Hurston Wright Foundation.   Available on Anchor FM, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered, is an author, academic, host, creative producer, and writer. Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Winner of a Northern Writers Award in fiction (2017), Yvonne was commended for children’s writing in the Faber Andlyn BAME (FAB) Prize (2017) and has six titles in Penguin Random House’s The Ladybird Tales of Superheroes and The Ladybird Tales of Crowns and Thrones. Yvonne teaches creative writing at Sheffield Hallam University where she is a Principal Lecturer and Humanities Business and Enterprise Lead. Host of Write Your Novel with Yvonne Battle-Felton, a write-along podcast series developed with New Writing North, Yvonne creates and hosts literary and storytelling events and opportunities and has completed her second novel for adults and her first children’s book. --- The Black Writer's Studio podcast is presented by The Hurston/Wright Foundation. Learn more at HurstonWright.org --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Destiny O. Birdsong is a poet, novelist, and essayist whose work has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, African American Review, and Catapult, among other publications. Her debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published in 2020 by Tin House and was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award. Her debut novel, Nobody’s Magic, was published in February 2022 from Grand Central Publishing.  Learn more at http://www.DestinyBirdsong.com -----  Credits:   Hosted and produced by Khadijah Ali-Coleman, Ed.D.  Music by Benjamin B. Dawson, Jr.  Song "Legacy" performed by Liberated Muse, written by Khadijah Ali-Coleman   Presented by the Hurston Wright Foundation.   Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org  The Hurston Wright Foundation is Online!  »» Website: http://www.HurstonWright.org »» Twitter: https://twitter.com/HurstonWright »» YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWVtzXxzLgSGdWgVFzixKg »»»»»»»» Email List Sign-Up: https://www.HurstonWright.org ................  Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman (http://www.khadijahali-coleman.com) is the host of the Black Writer's Studio podcast. She is the executive director of the Hurston Wright Foundation.  The podcast highlights writers of the African diaspora.  Each new episode is released on Sundays via YouTube, Anchor.FM and Spotify. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago, and at Stateville Prison via the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. She is the Inaugural Poet for the People Practitioner Fellow at University of Chicago. Betts serves as Poetry Editor at The Langston Hughes Review and is founder of the nonprofit organization The Whirlwind Learning Center on Chicago’s South Side. ----- Credits:   Hosted and produced by Khadijah Ali-Coleman, Ed.D.  Music by Benjamin B. Dawson, Jr.  Song "Legacy" performed by Liberated Muse, written by Khadijah Ali-Coleman   Presented by the Hurston Wright Foundation.   Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org The Hurston Wright Foundation is Online!  »» Website: http://www.HurstonWright.org »» Twitter: https://twitter.com/HurstonWright »» YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWVtzXxzLgSGdWgVFzixKg »»»»»»»» Email List Sign-Up: https://www.HurstonWright.org Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman (http://www.khadijahali-coleman.com) is the host of the Black Writer's Studio podcast. She is the executive director of the Hurston Wright Foundation.  The podcast highlights writers of the African diaspora. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts  is author of the dynamic book, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration.  She is a professor of English and Black Studies at the Community College of Philadelphia and the founder of HeARTspace, a healing community that uses storytelling and the arts to serve those who have experienced mental, emotional and physical trauma.  As a writer, Tracey has published over 15 books, including several collaborations with numerous high-profile authors. In 2016, Tracey was honored by SheKnows Media as one of the "Voices of the Year" for her nuanced and personal exploration of mental health, PTSD, and self-care.   Tracey has work has been published in print and online publications such as O Magazine, The Washington Post, Essence Magazine, The Guardian, and the 2021 book, "You are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience", edited by Brene Brown, and Tarana Burke. Learn more at https://www.traceymlewis.com/ ---- --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared 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. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an assistant professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design. ----------  Credits:   Hosted and produced by Khadijah Ali-Coleman, Ed.D. Music by Benjamin B. Dawson, Jr.  Song "Legacy" performed by Liberated Muse,  written by Khadijah Ali-Coleman   Presented by the Hurston Wright Foundation.   Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support

Keisha was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. She has a business degree from Bentley University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The New York Times, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Electric Lit and Lion’s Roar Magazine. She has received fellowships from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, Moulin à Nef in France, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and VONA.  Her debut novel, No Heaven For Good Boys, is a New York Times Editors' Choice.  Learn more about her http://www.KeishaBush.com   --------------------  Credits:   Hosted and produced by Khadijah Ali-Coleman, Ed.D.  Music by Benjamin B. Dawson, Jr.  Song "Legacy" performed by Liberated Muse, written by Khadijah Ali-Coleman   Presented by the Hurston Wright Foundation.   Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org   The Hurston Wright Foundation is Online!  »» Website: http://www.HurstonWright.org  »» Twitter: https://twitter.com/HurstonWright  »» YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWVtzXxzLgSGdWgVFzixKg  »»»»»»»» Email List Sign-Up: https://www.HurstonWright.org ................  Dr. Khadijah Ali-Coleman is the host of the Black Writer's Studio podcast. She is the executive director of the Hurston Wright Foundation.  The podcast highlights writers of the African diaspora.  Each new episode is released on Sundays via YouTube, Anchor.FM and Spotify. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackwritersstudio/support