Juliette Harris is the editor of International Review of African American Art (IRAAA), which is published by Hampton University Museium in Virginia. She is the editor of In the Memory of Frances, Zora and Lorraine: Essays and Interviews on Black Women. Her prize winning plays and TV productions include "JUBAm" the PBS series on African folklore. She has an MA in American Studies from the College of William and Mary, an MS in TV from Syracuse University and a BA in history from Virginia Union University.
Pamela Johnson, a former senior editor of Essence magazine and now a frequent contributor, is a graduate of Stanford University. She is the co-author of the novel Santa & Pete. She lives in New York City.
Ntozake Shange is a writer, educator, and poet. She was born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey on October 18, 1948. Shange graduated from Barnard College in 1970 and entered the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a master's degree in 1973. It was while in graduate school that she adopted her African name. Shange taught writing and took part in poetry readings and dance performances. She taught drama and creative writing at several colleges and universities, including Yale and Howard. In 1983, Shange became associate professor of drama at the University of Houston. Shange wrote For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, a choreopoem that opened… on Broadway in 1976. The show won an Obie Award and was nominated for an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy. Shange also wrote the trilogy, Three Pieces, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry in 1981. She also received an Obie in 1981 for her adaptation of Bertold Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. Shange has also published novels, collections of poetry, and a children's book.