Teaching Black: Pedagogy, Practice, and Perspectives on Writing

Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature presents the experiences and voices of Black creative writers who are also teachers. The authors in this collection engage poetry, fiction, experimental literature, playwriting, and literary criticism. They provide historical and theoretical interventions and practical advice for teachers and students of literature and craft. Contributors work in high schools, colleges, and community settings and draw from these rich contexts in their essays. This book is an invaluable tool for teachers, practitioners, change agents, and presses. Teaching Black is for any and all who are interested in incorporating Black literature and conversations on Black literary craft into their own work.

Ana-Maurine Lara is a scholar and a national award-winning novelist and poet. She is the author most recently of Erzulie’s Skirt, Kohnjehr Woman, and Sum of Parts. Her academic books include Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty and Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic. Lara’s work focuses on questions of black and indigenous people and freedom.

drea brown is a poet-scholar and author of dear girl: a reckoning. They are assistant professor at Bryant University in the Department of English and Cultural Studies. drea’s work is concerned with the connection between haunting and Black women’s lives and literary productions.