Kendra N. Bryant Aya, Ph.D. 

I am a Black lesbian woman–a fraternal twin who enjoys reading, writing, singing, painting, & shuckin & jivin to & about all things Black. I spend way too much time theorizing about white America’s bullshit; however, I balance that by loving Alice Walker; writing tankas & haikus; & singing w/Kanye West, Aretha Franklin, & Lauryn Hill. I basically live on coffee & weekly yoga. I have no children excepting my miniature schnauzer pup, Macy Gray; I carry three quotes w/me regularly:

“Keep your eyes on the prize,” said Mommy;

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our mind,” said Bob Marley; and

according to John 1: 1 and 14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . and the Word was made flesh.”

I real life endeavor to be a renowned poet, but, for the time being, I work as an associate professor of English at North Carolina A&T State University where I daydream & teach various English courses. If you’re so interested, you may find a list of my scholarly & creative publications under the “dossier” link. I do hope you read a few of my works, but if not, I recommend you read the following texts, which inspirit my own writing praxtice:

1. Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks;
2. Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora by Dona Marimba Ani;
3. Soul Talk: The New Spirituality of African American Women by Akasha Gloria Hull;
4. all about love: new visions by bell hooks;
5. Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women by Brittney C. Cooper;
6. To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey by Parker Palmer;
7. Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches by Audre Lorde;
8. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson; 
9. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker; and
10. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

As a matter of fact, read everything by Alice Walker; she is light.