Linda Ashear has published two collections of poetry, Toward the Light (Croton Review Press, 1989) and The Rowers, The Swimmers and The Drowned (1996), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she runs writing workshops for adults and children in Westchester and Rockland counties in New York and does readings at libraries, arts associations and colleges. She has published in numerous anthologies and literary magazines, including The Bellingham Review, Without Halos, and The Laurel Review.
Jennifer Nicole Bacon is a recent graduate of Mount Vernon College with a B.A. in Human Development, and currently resides in Virginia. She is a poet and her creative writing has been featured in The Returning Woman and a self-published poetry journal.
Chris Brandt’s poems and essays have appeared in magazines in the U.S. and Spain. His translation of Carmen Valle’s book Entre la vigilia y el sueno de las fieras was recently published as a bilingual edition by the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture in San Juan.
Joseph Bruchac, III is an award-winning Abenaki author, poet and storyteller, as well as a scholar of Native American culture. His poems, articles and stories have appeared in more than 500 publications, from Parabola to National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. He is the author of the novels Dawn Land and Long River, coauthor of the Keepers of the Earth series, and has recently published Roots of Survival, Native American Storytelling and the Sacred (Fulcrum Publishing, 1996), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Laura Y. Bowman is a poet, playwright, and writer of children’s stories. Her poetry has aired on New York radio stations WBAI and WNYE. She has performed throughout New York City, notably at the Apollo Theatre in conjunction with Inner City Broadcasting.
Rozell Caldwell received his B.A. from Lane College and is the author of Things As They Seem (Challenger Press, 1986) and the privately published Tales Of The Griot (1996). His poetry has appeared regularly in literary journals. He is currently a history teacher in Brownsville, Tennessee.
Leonard Chang has a B.A. from Harvard College, and an M.F.A. from the University of California at Irvine. His first novel, The Fruit ‘N Food, published recently, won the Black Heron Press Award for Social Fiction. His book reviews have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and Urban Tempo Magazine.
Lucille Clifton is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She has received many fellowships, awards and distinctions for her poetry collections and children’s books, including the Shelley Memorial Prize, the Charity Randall Citation, and an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She is the only author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in one year: Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems, both from BOA Editions, Ltd. Her current book, the terrible stories is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Darius Cooper is a professor of Literature/Film at San Diego Mesa College. His poetry was recently anthologized in Living In America: Poetry & Fiction by South Asian American Writers. His poems, stories and film criticisms have appeared in such publications as International Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Film Quarterly, and The East-West Film Journal.
Clinton Crawford is an assistant professor in the Department of Language, Literature, Communication and Philosophy at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, in Brooklyn, NY. His most recent publication is Recasting Ancient Egypt in the African Context (Africa World Press, 1996).
Gabrielle David, Editor of phati’tude, is a poet, writer, photographer and graphic artist. In 1995, she served as Literature Coordinator for Langston Hughes Library in Queens, NY where she organized a major poetry series. She has published two poetry collections, this is me, a collection of poems & things (CCI Books, 1994) and spring has returned & i am renewed (CCI Books, 1995).
Sally de Mattia has published in the U.S. and Italy. She interviews writers for Omero Magazine in Rome, Italy, and is writing a play for Jump-Start Theater in San Antonio, TX. She lives in Naples, Italy.
Barbara Joyce Donahue-Walters has been writing poetry since 1969. Her career is in the field of social services and she is currently attending Hunter University School of Social Work.
India DuBois, Managing Editor of phati’tude, writes songs and fiction in addition to poetry. A graduate of Columbia University’s M.F.A. program in Writing, she has performed her poetry and songs throughout the New York metropolitan area. Her first book, Jazz and the Evening Sun is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude. She is currently working on a new book of poetry, a novel and a children’s book.
Maria Fama is the author of three books of poetry. Italian Notebook, a collaborative book of poems with Mary Russo Demetrick, is her latest. She is cofounder of Allegro, Inc., a video production company.
Luis H. Francia is a poet and critic who has published two books of poetry. He edited the seminal Brown River, White Ocean, an anthology of Philippine Literature in English, writes for The Village Voice, A. Magazine and Asiaweek, and teaches Asian American literature at Sarah Lawrence College. He is one of the editors of the recently published anthology, Flippin’: Filipinos on America and is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Barbara Franklin, former nurse, educator and real estate manager, is currently pursuing her writing career full time. Her first collection of poetry, Higher Ground (1994) is in its second printing and she recently completed her second book, Spiritual Cultivation of an Afrocentric Soul (1995). Her poems appear in the anthology Poetic Voices.
Daniel Garrett’s work has appeared in numerous publications including, Africa Report, Anything That Moves, Art & Antiques, the Audubon Activist, Black Film Reivew, Changing Men, Emerge and the Quarterly Black Review of Books. He is the founder of the Cultural Politics Discussion Group and has participated in various writing groups and workshops.
César A. González-T., a Chicano teacher and writer, is the founding chair of Chicano Studies at San Diego Mesa College. He has published poetry, short fiction and literary criticism and his work has appeared in Bilingual Review, RiverSedge, Prairie Schooner, Nebraska Humanities and others. He has two titles currently distributed by Bilingual Press: Unwinding the Silence and Rudolfo A. Anaya: Focus on Criticism, and is currently coauthoring a comprehensive annotated bio-bibliography on the work of Anaya, for the Chicano Studies Library Division of California Press, Berkeley.
Ray Gonzalez is a poet, essayist and editor. He is the editor of sixteen anthologies, most recently Currents From the Dancing River: Contemporary Latino Essays, Fiction, and Poetry (Harcourt Brace, 1994) and Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood (Anchor/Doubleday, 1996). Among his awards are a 1993 Before Columbus Foundation Award for Excellence in Editing, and a 1988 Colorado Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has served as Poetry Editor of The Bloomsbury Review for fifteen years and is currently assistant professor of English and Latin American Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago. His book, The Heat Of Arrivals, is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
M. Karima Grant is a winner of the 1994 MacArthur-Leithauser Travel Award Recipient for Excellence in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in Red Clay Magazine, Canary Wine and African Voices. A full time writer, she is currently working on her first novel.
Gábor G. Gyukics is a poet and literary translator. Born in Budapest, he has been living in the United States since 1988. A member of Pen International, Writers in Exile Section and ALTA, he writes in English and Hungarian, and translates from and to both languages. His works have appeared in the U.S. and Europe.
William Hairston is an author, poet, playwright, actor, director, producer and public administrator, scriptwriter for U.S. government presentations; professional actor performing in New York City, on tour, in summer stock and in television shows. Recipient of several awards and honors and published in numerous anthologies, his most recent work is Sex & Conflict (University Editions, 1993), a novel.
Lola Haskins has published five books of poems, most recently Hunger, which won the 1992 Iowa Poetry Prize and has been reissued by Story Line Press. Two further books, Extranjers, and Desire Lines, New and Selcted Poems, are forthcoming from Story Line Press. She also writes prose and often collaborates with composers and is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Wasabi Kanastoga was born in Cuba and raised in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in The Bloomsbury Review, Colorado Review, Puerto Del Sol, and the anthology Paper Dance. His fiction has been published in the anthologies Iguana Dreams and Under The Pomegranate Tree.
M. Malcolm King, Managing Editor of phati’tude, holds a B.A. in English from Long Island University, New York. The author of the poetry collection, Gem In I, his work has appeared in numerous anthologies. He has read his work in coffeehouses and libraries as well as on radio and television stations in the New York tri-state area.
Nicholas Kolumban, born in Budapest, arrived in the U.S. after the Hungarian Revolution. He received his M.A. from Pennsylvania State University and has taught German literature in college and English in high school. He has eight books of poetry to his credit, four of them translations. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Another Chicago Magazine, Chariton Review and elsewhere.
Reginald Lockett was recently awarded a 1996 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for his collection, Where The Birds Sing Bass (Jukebox Press, 1995). Currently an English teacher at San Jose City College, his poems, reviews, articles and essays have appeared in over sixty anthologies and periodicals, and he has performed poetry throughout California and around the nation.
Benjamin V. Marshall has an MFA in Creative Writing, University of Massachusetts, and is the recipient of two New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Plays produced and/or staged readings include: Atlanta; Joshua’s Wall, Philadelphia, 1995; and Boom Box, 1995, New York and HBO New Works 1995. His poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Obsidian I and II, and Flash-Bopp.
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is a performance-poet who distinguishes himself as a dynamic presenter of his works in the oral tradition, and has performed throughout the country, notably in California, Tijuana, Mexico, and New York. As a poet-teacher, his career has spanned 29 years, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of children of all ages across the country. His current collection is Concertos on Market Street (Kenetic Images Press, 1993).
E. Ethelbert Miller is the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University. The founder and director of the Ascension Poetry Reading Series, one of the oldest literary series in D.C., he has authored several books. His recent releases are First Light: New and Selected Poems (Black Classic Press, 1994) and he is editor of In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1994). In 1996 he received an honorary doctorate of literature from Emory & Henry College.
Lorraine Miller is an illustrator, artist and photographer. A graduate from SUNY Empire State College with a B.A. in Psychology, she is currently working on her M.A. at Hofstra University in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers throughout New York and her illustrations are featured in this issue of phati’tude.
Margo Norman is the author of two books of poetry Laffin’ At Lini’ and My Lord, My God, The Beginning. She has been a member of the Black Writers Guild and was co-owner of the magazine, The BayViewer. Originally from Missouri, she makes her home in California.
Janos Olah lives in Budapest, Hungary and has published three volumes of poetry and four novels. Since 1994 he has been the editor of Magyar Naplo/Hungarian Diary, a literary magazine in Budapest. He was awarded the prestigious Attila Jozesef Prize for Poetry in 1994 and his works have appeared in Hawaii Review, Massachusetts Review, and Silverfish Review.
John I. Olmo is a poet and painter who has been writing poetry for the past five years, but has been committed to the craft for the past two. His work originates from life experiences and from the “six senses.” Presently, he is working on Poetry: Straight Up, and a new series of paintings.
Leroy V. Quintana, one of the most recognized Chicano poets, has received the American Book Award twice, in 1981 for Sangre and in 1993 for The History of Home. His recent collection My Hair Turning Gray Among Strangers is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude. He currently teaches English at San Diego Mesa College in California.
Marci R. Rendon, White Earth Anishinabe, is a mother, writer and sometimes performance artist. A former recipient of the Loft’s Inroads Writers of Color Award for Native Americans, she recently received a Jerome Fellowship from the Minneapolis Playwright’s Center; and Intermedia Arts Emerging Artists’ Installation award, and published her first children’s book, Pow Wow Summer (CarolRhoda, Inc., 1996). She is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Louis Reyes Rivera has published several volumes of poetry, his most recent Scattered Scriptures (Shamal Books, 1996). His essays and poetry have appeared in numerous periodicals, including New York Newsday, Universal Black Writers Magazine, New Rain and Herejes y Mitificadores and ALOUD: Live from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Editor of several books, including John Oliver Killens’ Great Black Russian: The Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin (1989) he is currently a teacher at Pratt Institute and the host of El Barrio Speaks, a cable television program in New York City. He is interviewed in this issue of phati’tude.
Charles Rossiter is the producer/host of Poetry Motel, seen on a network of community access television stations throughout upstate New York and Massachusetts. A member of the performance poetry group “3 Guys From Albany,” his poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Green Fuse, Maryland Poetry Review, Thema, Little Magazine, Heaven Bone, and A Gathering of Poets. His most recent collection is No, I Didn’t Steal This Baby, I’m the Daddy (Albany: A.P.D., 1995).
Alexis K. Rotella is the author of over 40 haiku books and is a student of traditional Chinese medicine.
Joyce Andrea Rothenberg, a/k/a Joyce Joyce Andrea is listed with Poets and Writers as a published and performance poet. Recently, she was the featured poet on Teachers & Writers/Poetry-in-the-Morning Series radio program and performed at the Ubu Repertory Theatre in New York City. She is currently working on an anthology.
Bob Slaymaker is a product of Columbia’s graduate writing program. His poems have appeared in many publications, including Essence, River Styx, the minnesota review, New York Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse and The Christian Science Monitor.
Mary McLaughlin Slechta writes poetry and fiction out of her experience growing up in a community comprising of Jamaicans and African-Americans. She works with the Community Writers’ Project in Syracuse, NY and has performed her poetry with “Sisterfriends.” She has published in Forkroads, Exursus and Paterson Literary Journal.
Angela Sternreich, Book Reviewer/Translations Coordinator of phati’tude, is an artist, writer and typesetter. She is currently attending Hofstra University’s Deaf Studies Program.
Virgil Suarez is the author of Latin Jazz, The Cutter, Havana Thursdays and Going Under, all novels about the Cuban-American experience. His recent efforts include the best selling anthology, Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction, which he coauthored with Delia Poley. He recently edited the anthology, Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, with Victor Hernandez Cruz and Leroy V. Quintana. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals and he currently teaches at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
Eileen Tabios, editor of The Asian Pacific American Journal, received Poet’s Magazine’s 1996 Iva Mary Williams Poetry Award. Her collection of poetry-related essays, In Progress, will be published in 1997 by the Asian American Writers Workshop (AAWW, NYC). Her fiction and poetry has been published in numerous publications including Flippin’: Filipinos Writing On America (AAWW, 1996), Bamboo Ridge, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum, The Santa Barbara Review and Coffeehouse.
Tafa is a painter from Ghana who now makes his home in New York City. Although his main concentration is visual art, he has been writing poetry and prose for many years and has published in African publications, including the national newspaper of Ghana.
Lora R. Tucker, author of prose and poetry, is currently a member of the Harlem Writers Guild and the Langston Hughes Writers Guild of Sag Harbor, NY. She currently works as a Senior Office Designer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Tanya Tyler writes poetry, prose, lyrics, plays and short stories. She has published in Essence magazine and served as board member and associate editor at Blind Beggar Press. Recently, an excerpt of her play, Wide River Crossing, was staged at the Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey.
Gina Valdés has published two books of poetry, Puentas y fronteras/Bridges and orders (Bilingual Press, 1996) and Comiendo lumbre/Eating Fire (Maize Press, 1986). Her poetry and fiction have been published in journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe.
Lenore Baeli Wang was the 1995 judge for the Wyoming State Writers Poetry Competition. Her chapbook, Born in the Year of the Pink Sink (Malafemmina Press) is available for purchase from the author. She currently teaches writing at Rider University.
Laverne C. Williams, editor of the literary magazine SURVIVOR, has published in numerous literary magazines, including The Kerf, Haiku Headlines and The Caribbean Writer. Her new collection of poetry, Blue Mood: The Depression Chronicles is due for release, and she is currently editing an anthology on the subject of women and rape, for which she won a grant from The Puffin Foundation.
