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Black Women Writers at Work Audiobook
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Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the twentieth century.
Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.
Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.
Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today.
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“When this classic collection was published in 1984, the writers Claudia Tate interviewed were engaged in the creative work that produced new Black feminist terrains. Today Black Women Writers at Work serves as a much-needed reminder that the imagination always blazes trails that lead us toward more habitable futures.”
— Angela Davis, author of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
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“Tate’s probing, provocative and insightful questions set a new standard for the interview as a genre.”
— Valerie Smith, Princeton University
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A New York Times Book Review pick of Best Books Now in Paperback
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About the Authors
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was a singer, actress, dancer, activist, filmmaker, writer, and mother. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies she wrote several volumes of poetry, including “On the Pulse of the Morning” for the inauguration of President Clinton. She was given a lifetime appointment as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, and in 2010 President Barack Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
Nikki Giovanni has written many books of poetry for children and adults. She calls herself, “a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English.” She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and since then has become one of America’s most widely read poets.
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize for literature, an American Book Award, the Norman Mailer Prize, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Condorcet Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, and the Anisfield Wolf Book Award, among others. She wrote twelve novels, including Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into a major motion picture starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.
Alice Walker is a distinguished author and activist who has written dozens of books, including novels, poems, essays, short stories, and children’s books. She was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award in 1983. Walker’s other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. More than fifteen million copies of her books have been sold, and her work has been translated into more than two dozen languages. As an activist, she focuses on issues of inequality, poverty, and social injustice.
Colleen Delany has been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington’s vastly talented acting community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce best out of three in “paper-rock-scissors” anyone wishing to topple her from that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress,—having played roles at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre, among others—Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including audiobook narration.
About Allyson Johnson
Allyson Johnson is an actress and singer who began performing at age twelve as coanchor of Bubble Gum Digest, for which she won an Emmy. After earning a degree in psychology from Brown University, she moved to New York where she became a social worker before shifting to a career in television and radio. Johnson has recorded countless commercials, promos, audiobooks, narrations, and animation series.