Starting off our list is a woman who has been writing since her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” was published in 1970: editor, writer, playwright, and literary critic Toni Morrison. Her novels, known for their epic themes, beautiful language, and richly detailed African-American main characters, have earned her a great deal of awards, accolades, and honorary degrees, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Morrison has continued writing throughout her life, and her identity as an African American woman has been a key inspiration for her writing, which has in turn helped to inspire her readers, regardless of nationality. Key works include: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved.
39-year-old Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, nonfiction writer, and short-story writer. Completing a master’s degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University as well as a Master of Arts degree in African studies from Yale, Adichie has no lack of experience with the art of writing. Adichie published a few collections and short poems before the publishing of her first novel in 2003, Purple Hibiscus, which received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. She also gave a TED Talk in 2009 entitled “The Danger of a Single Story” in which she expresses concern for the underrepresentation of minorities in media. Key works include: Purple Hibiscus, The Thing Around Your Neck, Americanah, and We Should All Be Feminists.
3. Sarah Jones
Called “a master of the genre” by The New York Times, Sarah Jones is a Tony and Obie Award-winning playwright and performer. Sarah began her early writing and performances with slam poetry in a small café in New York City, and has since performed around the world raising awareness for issues such as ethnic/racial, gender, and economic disparities, both globally and in the United States. She has both written and performed in plays in venues such as The Lincoln Center, The Market Theater in South Africa, various prisons, schools, and community centers, and even the White House. Her most recent work, a one-woman show entitled “Sell/Buy/Date,” premiered at the Manhattan Theatre Club in the fall of 2016. Key works include: Bridge and Tunnel, Women Can’t Wait!, and Sell/Buy/Date.
Staceyann Chin is a spoken-word poet, performing artist, and LGBT rights political activist whose work has been published in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has also been featured on 60 Minutes and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Chin, being openly lesbian and recently becoming a single mother, writes very activist-driven poetry, calling herself am “out poet and political activist” since 1998. Chin has won multiple spoken-word poetry competitions, including the 1999 Chicago People of Color Slam, the 1998 Lambda Poetry Slam, and the 1998 and 2000 Slam This! competitions. Key works include: Wildcat Woman, The One She Now Carries On Her Back, and Stories Surrounding My Coming.
Monica Roberts is a GLAAD nominated blogger, writer, and award-winning trans rights activist. She is the founding editor of the blog TransGriot (Gree-oh) which she has been writing articles for since 2004 when the blog was a part of The Letter, a Louisville-based LGBT newspaper. The blog itself was founded in 2006, when Roberts realized that there was a disturbing lack of trans blogs, let alone trans blogs that focus on blacks and people of color. One of the missions of her blog is: “[to] chronicle the history of Black transpeople.” Since the creation of the blog, Roberts has been using her writing to explore the intersections of cissexism and racism, and has won multiple awards, including the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award. To view her work, visit www.transgriot.blogspot.com