Author Description

OBSIDIAN'S RADIANCE features four folios celebrating writing and arts of the African diaspora. Fiction folio "Radiant Youth: Stories of Light & Darkness," edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, explores and reveals what it means to be a child and how the experiences of our youth can impact and linger, even into our adulthood, sometimes for the rest of our days, complicating what it means to be a Black child living in a world that every day seems to want to remove you from it. The special section guest edited by Nancy D. Tolson with Wesley Jacques, "Visions & Words for Youth," invites questions, doubts, and challenges to the status quo with regard to how we read Black children. The annual Furious Flower Poetry Prize folio, judged by Kei Miller and introduced by Lauren K. Alleyne, celebrates the winner, honorable mention, and finalists, whose words, Gwendolyn Brooks might say, move with "wicked grace." Also included is an Editors' Folio, with new poetry and visual art.