1:00 - 3:00
Dr. Kim McMillon moderates a reading and public discussion with poets and writers from Black Fire—This Time, Volume 1, a powerful new anthology that explores the history and legacy of the Black Arts Movement. While Black Fire—This Time features the works of over 100 poets and writers, the majority of this program’s readers hail from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dr. Kim McMillon, University of California, Merced, is a producer, playwright and contributor to Some Other Blues: New Perspectives on Amiri Baraka and Black Power Encyclopedia (1965-1975). She is editor of Black Fire—This Time (Willow Books).
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Black Fire: This Time — Website
Judy Juanita was at San Francisco State University in the 1960s, when she joined fellow student protesters to revolutionize American higher education and create the nation’s first black studies department. Her twenty-odd plays have been produced in the Bay Area, L.A. and NYC.
devorah major is San Francisco’s Third Poet Laureate. Her most recent poetry collection is califia’s daughter (Willow Books).
Michael Warr is a poet whose literary honors include a 2021 San Francisco Arts Commission Artist Award and the 2020 Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a San Francisco Library Laureate, a former Deputy Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora and a board member of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.
Karla Brundage is a Bay Area poet, activist, and educator with a passion for social justice. She is the founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange (WO2WA) and a board member of the Before Columbus Foundation.
Amber Butts is a storyteller, cultural strategist, and grief worker who believes that Black folks are already whole. She has been featured in various publications, including Zora, Essence, NPR, The Black Youth Project, and Metoo and is currently at work on a speculative fiction novel that writes elders into our futures.
Landon Smith has performed poetry in Oakland, New York, Detroit, Berkeley, Bowery Poetry’s virtual No Desk Concert and the Santa Clara Poet Laureate Inaugural Poetry Reading. His work has been published in Silver Pinion Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Eris and Eros Journal, and he is currently a full-time faculty member at Chabot College.
Tureeda Mikell, named “Story Medicine Woman,” has published 72 at-risk student anthologies. She is co-curator of the Patrice Lumumba Anthology, and her recent books include Synchronicity and The Oracle of Sun Medicine.
Meilani Clay is a writer, educator, and mama from Oakland, CA. A current student of San Francisco State’s Creative Writing program, Meilani bridges worlds with her words and will one day build a fort out of books written by Black people.
Avotcja is a poet/playwright/multi-percussionist/photographer/teacher who has been published in English and Spanish in the USA, Mexico and Europe. She is an award-winning poet & multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City, Peru's Susana Baca at San Francisco’s Encuentro Popular and Cuba’s Gema y Pável, and she has played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bobi & Luis Cespedes, and John Handy.