#ObsidianVoices

Trace Howard DePass is the author of Self-portrait as the Space between Us (PANK Books, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Prize. His work has been featured on screen and radio—BET Next Level, Billboard, Poetry Foundation, Ours Poetica, and NPR’s The Takeaway—and in print— SAND Journal, Sonora Review, Bettering American Poetry, and Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series. DePass has received fellowships with Poetry Foundation, Teaching Artist Project, & Poets House.

Aris Kian is a student of community organizing and abolition. She is ranked #10 in the 2020 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She is an Emerging Writers Fellow with Writers in the Schools and an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow pursuing her MFA at the University of Houston. Her poems are published with Write About Now, Underground Journal, Houston Review of Books, and elsewhere.

MARS Marshall is a writer and cultural organizer born and raised in Detroit. Their work has been published in the Lambda Literary Art anthology Emerge, Foglifter Journal, Gertrude Press, the Shade Journal, and others. MARS was a 2019 Lambda Literary Art Emerging Writers Fellow in Poetry. Their chapbook FLOWER BOI was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Black River Chapbook Prize and Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition.

Olufunke Ogundimu is a doctoral student in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, MFA International program in fiction. Her work has been published in adda stories, Transition Magazine, New Orleans Review, Jalada Africa, Red Rock Review, Johannesburg Review of Books, Asymptote Journal, and other places.

A journalist for over 25 years specializing in Black entertainment, lifestyle, and culture, Ronda Racha Penrice‘s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Essence, theGrio, The Root, NBC Think, Zora (Medium), and more. The Chicago native with deep Mississippi roots is a former contributing editor for Upscale Magazine as well as former deputy editor for Uptown Magazine. The longtime Atlanta resident is also the author of the updated Black American History for Dummies. Penrice edited the new book, Cracking the Wire During Black Lives Matter, a collection of essays about one of the most important shows in television history (Fayetteville Mafia Press, published January 25, 2022). Penrice edited Cracking the Wire During Black Lives Matter, a collection of essays about one of the most important shows in television history (Fayetteville Mafia Press, published January 25, 2022).

Moderator

Nandi Comer is the author of American Family: A Syndrome (Finishing Line Press) and Tapping Out (Northwestern University Press). She is a Cave Canem Fellow, a Callaloo Fellow, and a Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Green Mountains Review, Muzzle, The Offing, and Southern Indiana Review. She directs the Allied Media Projects Speakers Bureau and is a founding member of the collective Detroit Lit.

 Moderator

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning author, editor, and poet. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, and the genius of Mississippi Delta culture. Her first prose collection, Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books) was a finalist for the 2021 Ignyte, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards for the Year’s Best Collection. Her hybrid/multigenre collection Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press) was longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a PW Starred Review, and Shotgun Lullabies (2011) is being adapted for a dance performance at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her Dark Matter anthologies won two World Fantasy Awards and she was nominated for the 2020 and 2021 World Fantasy Award for Year’s Best Collection and for her contributions to the field. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (1945-2010), The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror vol 2, The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction, the New York Times, The Ringing Ear, Ghostfishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, and Marvel’s Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda. Sheree is the tenth editor of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949, and the associate editor of Obsidian, founded in 1975. A former New Yorker, she lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid. Visit www.shereereneethomas.com