Samiya Bashir is the author of Where the Apple Falls: poems, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; editor of Best Black Women’s Erotica 2 and co-editor of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art. Her poetry, stories, articles, essays and editorial work have been featured in numerous publications, including: Callaloo; Vibe; Essence; Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam; Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint; The San Francisco Bay Guardian; Ms. Magazine; Black Issues Book Review; Curve; Lambda Book Report; Contemporary American Women Poets; and Best Lesbian Erotica 03. Bashir is a founding organizer of Fire & Ink: A Writers Festival for GLBT People of African Descent, a board member of the National Black Justice Coalition, and a fellow with the Cave Canem: African-American Poetry Workshop.

Sharon Bridgforth is the Lambda Award-winning author of the bull-jean stories (RedBone Press), and love conjure/blues, a performance/novel published by RedBone Press. The premiere performance of love conjure/blues was produced by The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for African & African American Studies. Bridgforth is an Alpert Award Nominee in the Arts in Theatre; her work has been presented nationally at venues, including: The Madame Walker Theatre Center—Indianapolis, IN; Walker Art Center—Minneapolis, MN; the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival—Walhalla, MI; and Highways Performance Space—Santa Monica, CA. Bridgforth has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts Commissioning Program; The National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Playwright in Residence Program; and the Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Fund Award.

Bridgforth has developed an innovative style of teaching creative writing that she calls Finding Voice. Bridgforth has facilitated the Finding Voice method as part of long-term residency programming for institutions around the country, including The Austin Project (sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for African & African American Studies); Hamilton College—Clinton, NY; and the Austin Latina/Latino Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Organization (ALLGO)—Austin, TX. Bridgforth is executive producer of the Finding Voice Radio Show, funded by the Funding Exchange/The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media.

Photo © 2007 by Jen Simmons

Ernest Hardy writes about film and music from his home base of Los Angeles. His criticism has appeared in the LA Weekly, the LA Times, Vibe, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Source, Millennium Film Journal, Flaunt, Request, Minneapolis City Pages, and the reference books 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide, among others. He’s written liner notes for Chuck D Presents: Louder Than a Bomb, the box-set Say It Loud: A Celebration of Black Music in America, Curtis Mayfield: Gospel, and the box-set Superstars of Seventies Soul; he is the winner of the 2006 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence, honoring his liner notes for the Chet Baker CD, Career 1952-1988. A Sundance Fellow and a member of LAFCA (Los Angeles Film Critics Association), he’s sat as a juror for the Sundance Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival and Los Angeles Outfest. He’s also co-programmed the FUSION Film Festival in Los Angeles. Blood Beats: Vol. 2, Hardy’s first collection of film and music criticism, won a 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award; Blood Beats: Vol. 2 will be published by RedBone Press in fall 2007.

Photo © 2006 by Alex Demyanenko.

Recipient of Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, Reginald Harris is Systems Department Help Desk and Training Manager for the Enoch Pratt Free Library. His first book, 10 Tongues (Three Conditions Press, 2001) was finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year. His poetry, fiction, reviews and articles have appeared in numerous journals and websites, including 5 AM, African-American Review Blithe House Quarterly, Black Issues Book Review, Gargoyle, Lodestar Quarterly, Oyster Boy Review, Poetry Midwest, Sou’wester and the Best Black Gay Erotica, Black Silk, Bum Rush the Page, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, Volumes I, II, and IV of the Brown Sugar: Erotic Black Fiction series, and Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing anthologies. Harris has done readings and workshops at various venues including the Bowery Poetry Club (New York, NY); Catonsville (MD) High School; Johns Hopkins University; Simmons College (Boston MA); and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, he lives with his partner in the Waverly neighborhood of Baltimore.

Photo © 2006 by Steven G. Fullwood.

G. Winston James is a Jamaican-born poet and short fiction writer. He holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-nominated poetry collection Lyric: Poems Along a Broken Road. His poetry also appears in numerous anthologies and publications, including Black Ivy: A Literary and Visual Arts Magazine; Bloom Magazine: Queer Fiction, Art, Poetry and More; Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing; Kuumba: A Poetry Journal for Black People in the Life; Milking Black Bull; The Nubian Gallery; Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art; and the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthologies, Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS and The Road Before Us. His fiction and essays can also be found in Brooklyn Review; Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and Letters; Fighting Words: Personal Essays by Black Gay Men; His 2: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers; The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica; Shade: An Anthology of Short Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent; Think Again; and Waves: An Anthology of New Gay Fiction. A former executive director of the Other Countries Black Gay Expression artists collective, he was a founding organizer of Fire & Ink: A Writers Festival for GLBT People of African Descent. James is also co-editor of the historic anthology Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black an Identity.

Ana-Maurine Lara is an AfroDominican American writer and organizer. She was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in East Africa and Mount Vernon, NY. She received her BA from Harvard University.

Lara’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in several literary journals including Tongues Magazine and Blithe House Quarterly, among others. She has received awards from the Puffin Foundation, the Brooklyn Arts Council and PEN Northwest. Lara is co-author of bustingbinaries.com: a web site designed to assist in building a community of resistance by addressing the binaries in our social justice movements.

Ana-Maurine Lara’s debut novel, Erzulie’s Skirt, is a tale of love and survival in the Caribbean middle passage. She resides in Austin, Texas.

Photo © 2006 by Krissy Mahan.

Lisa C. Moore is the founder and editor of RedBone Press, which publishes work that celebrates the culture of black lesbians and gay men and further promotes understanding between black gays and lesbians and the black mainstream. RedBone's first book, does your mama know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories, won two 1997 Lambda Literary Awards, for Small Press and Lesbian Studies. The second title, the bull-jean stories by Sharon Bridgforth, won the 1998 Lambda Literary Award for Small Press. Three more books were released September 2004: love conjure/blues, a novel by Sharon Bridgforth; last rights and nothin’ ugly fly, both books of poetry by Marvin K. White. In the summer of 2005, RedBone published Where the Apple Falls, poetry by Samiya Bashir. Moore is co-editor, with G. Winston James, of Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity, published in April 2006. In May 2006, RedBone Press published Blood Beats: Vol. 1/ Demos, Remixes & Extended Versions, collected music and film essays by Sundance Film fellow Ernest Hardy.

Moore is currently in production for "sassy b. gonn: Searching for Black Lesbian Elders," a video documentary stemming from her master's research in anthropology (University of Texas, 2000). Moore was also lead organizer of the Fire & Ink writers festival for GLBT people of African descent held at the University of Illinois-Chicago in September 2002; she is currently board president of Fire & Ink. Moore is the former editor of Lambda Book Report.

Photo credit © 2005 by Bernard Morrisett.

Marvin K. White, author of the Lambda Literary Award-nominated collections of poetry last rights and nothin’ ugly fly (RedBone Press), is a poet, performer, playwright, visual artist as well as a community arts organizer. His poetry has been anthologized in The Road Before Us: 100 Black Gay Poets; My Brothers Keeper; Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians: New Gay Writing; Things Shaped in Passing; Sojourner: Writing in the Age of AIDS; Bum Rush the Page; Role Call; and Think Again, as well as other local and national publications. A former member of the critically acclaimed Pomo Afro Homos, he has led creative arts and writing workshops from inner city elementary schools to youth centers for runaway kids to black gay youth support groups. He is co-founder of B/GLAM (Black Gay Letters and Arts Movement), an organization whose goal is to preserve, present and incubate black gay artistic expressions. www.marvinkwhite.com

Photo © 2004 by Duane Cramer.