An Evening with Writers from Harlem Writers Guild
Diane Richards, playwright, performer, and producer, serves as Executive Director of the Harlem Writers Guild. Her play, Sowa’s Red Gravy, was produced in 2012 by Woodie King Jr. of the New Federal Theater; The New York Times called it “an irresistible, lusty celebration of passions.” Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Beloved Harlem: A Literary Tribute to Black America’s Most Famous Neighborhood, Essence Magazine, and the Harlem Writers Guild Press. More recently, in 2015, she co-produced Amiri Baraka’s final play—Most Dangerous Man in America—based on the life of W. E. B. Dubois.
Judy C. Andrews received a Master of Arts degree in English/Creative Writing from The City College of New York. She has worked as a teacher, freelance writer, an editor, and a presidentially appointed children’s advocate. The novel, An Ocean of Jewels (Harlem Writers Guild Press, 2006), is available on Kindle and at your favorite bookstores. Ms. Andrews is currently working on her second novel of suspense, which examines the horrors of medical fraud and sexual abuse as well as their impact on a traditional, upper middle class, Gullah/Geechee town in New York.
Eartha Watts-Hicks is the founder of Earthatone Publishing and Earthatone Books. She is a NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) artist/entreprenuer, as well as a fiction fellow of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Center for Black Literature and North Country Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color. Eartha’s writing advice was featured in The Writer’s Guide to 2013. In June of 2013, she received the Just R.E.A.D. “Game Changer” Award in the fiction category from the NYCHA branch of the NAACP for her debut novel, LOVE CHANGES and was named New York City literacy ambassador. In 2014, she was featured in the Congressional Black Caucus as part of the Write It Down panel discussion. A PR writer and affiliate of BlackPR.com, she specializes in press releases for entrepreneurs, ministries, and nonprofits. She also leads writing, self-publishing, and publicity workshops for the New York Public Library, The National Writers Union, and The New York City Parks Department. Eartha is now editor-in-chief at Harlem World Magazine and creator of the A Planner Is A Girl’s Best Friend series of planners, appointment books, and calendars #APlannerIsAGirlsBestFriend. For more information, visit https://Author.to/Earthatone or CONNECT @Earthatone
Born and raised in Harlem, New York, Marc W. Polite is a poet and essayist. He writes about social justice, labor issues, film, technology, and literature. His reviews and striking commentary appears in Poets & Writers, Black Star News, Madame Noire, The Amsterdam News, The Grio, TIME Magazine, The Atlanta Post, New England Informer, and Harlem’s own Harlem News Group and Harlem World
Magazine. Mr. Polite is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the social and political commentary blog site, Polite On Society, recognized by the New York Association of Black Journalists [NYABJ] for “Best Blog Commentary” of 2014. His published titles include Poetic Ruminations of Mr. Born Nice, Everything to Learn, Nothing to Teach, and Poetic Ruminations: Volume 2, all of which are available on Amazon, BN(dot)com, and several other online retailers. For more information, visit www.PoliteOnSociety.com or CONNECT @MarcPolite #MarcWPolite #PoliteOnSociety.
Oscar Sanders is a multidisciplined award-winning author and playwright. He has garnered the Indie Author Legacy Award Poet of the Year 2017, (NAACP/NYCHA JUST READ AWARD 2016 Fiction/Final Hearing, LA, LA NEO NOIR, FILM, & Script Festival 2016 Fiction Final Hearing), and Jazz documentaries Billy Bang: Long Over Due (Carmarthen Bay FF 2013 Best Documentary, Capital City Black FF 2013 Best Documentary, Los Angles New Wave IFF 2013, Texas Underground FF Documentary 2012, and Best Director during the Pocono Mountains Film Festival in 2007. He is a seething feature for his political, spoken-word poetry performances, and has 2012, Peoples Film Festival Best served as Master of Ceremonies for key events, festivals, and book fairs: Bronx Book Fair 2017 host/facilitator of poetry segment Weaving our Voices, New York Screenplay Awards 2016, and 2017 Jury Member. Mr. Sanders’ jazz documentary, Michael Carvin: No Excuses (released 5/1/17), a hybrid of filmmaking and music composition, was the official selection of the People’s FF 2017. Oscar Sanders meshes poetry with opinions and news-depicting video in his theatrical release In Exposing Politics: A Play of Acts. Told through from the perspective of Midge “Buddy” Fletcher, an aging, opinionated theatre janitor, this latest off-Broadway work was featured at the Hudson Guild Theatre in August of 2019.
John Robinson is a spoken word poet. Born and raised in the Bronx, he began his early writing after being influenced by the pioneers of New York’s Hip Hop Music scene. Soon after being introduced to the Last Poets, he ventured into other forms of poetic verse. He has performed freestyle poetry and spoken word regularly at popular venues—Bowery Poetry Café, Brooklyn Moon, South of France Spoken Word Events, Nuyorican Poets Café, and Black on Black Rhyme among countless others. Founder of A
DEEPER SHADE OF SOUL, LLC, John is the author of A Spoken Word Soliloquy and co-author of The Book Sygnifyn Harlem in collaboration with Jade Banks. John Robinson has become a featured favorite, booked to perform spoken word at conferences and gala events hosted by national/international fraternal orders, Greek-letter organizations along the East Coast. In 2019, he was selected Most Valuable Poet [MVP] during Epiphany Radio Battle of the sexes and now co-hosts THE GET DOWN, a weekly internet talk radio show. John Robinson is slated to appear as featured poet for POETRY FEST 2019 in Myrtle Beach, SC and the ATL Poetry Conference, scheduled for April. Connect with him on Instagram @JRob_.
Minnette Coleman is originally from Atlanta, Georgia but had lived in Harlem for over thirty-five years. An active member of the Harlem Writers Guild, she shares her passion for research and elements of her family history through historical novels. Coleman’s father was the city editor of the Atlanta Daily World, and her grandfather was one of the city’s last blacksmiths. This legacy served as the inspiration behind her titles The Blacksmith’s Daughter and No Death by Unknown Hands. An off-off-Broadway actress and singer, she has worked with the Creative Arts Team at New York Universityand has written and performedHand-Me-Downs, a one-woman show that has toured the Southern states. A graduate of Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina she was inspired by a three hundred year-old tree that served as a critical part of the Underground Railroad tour and history, a focal point for “running aways” and the Quakers who helped them. Minnette became the historian for the Black Alumni Advisory Board of Guilford College, and the tree became the center for her latest release The Tree: A Journey to Freedom. A section of this novel was featured in the Fall/Winter 2018 edition of the Killens Review of Arts & Letters.
Red Room, 85 East 4th Street (one flight above KGB Bar, btw 2nd & 3rd Avenue)
— no cover, two-drink minimum —