Kendra N. Bryant 

I am a Black lesbian middle-class womanist, a fraternal twin, who enjoys reading, writing, singing, painting & shucking & jiving 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; & riding out on Kanye West, Aretha Franklin, & Lauryn Hill. I’m a pescatarian who grew up on chitlins & souse, but I basically live on eggs, grapes, & coffee. I have no children but got two nieces; can swim but cannot skate. 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 assistant professor of English at North Carolina A&T State University where I direct the composition program & teach various English courses. You can find a list of my scholarly and creative publications in my curriculum vitae as well as read full works 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 practice and thought processes:

1. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman;
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. Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy by Elizabeth G. McRae;
8. Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves The American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.;
9. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson; and–of course,
10. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker.

As a matter of fact, read everything by Alice Walker about whose 1982 The Color Purple–which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year–I recently completed a chapter essay. So look out for me.