LANGSTON HUGHES STAGE
FESTIVAL PARTICIPANTS
Rakim Allah. In the history of the Hip-Hop, few artists have had as great an impact on the development and progression of the art forms lyrical style as New York’s own William Michael Griffin…known to world as Rakim Allah. Universally referenced as one of the Masters of the Microphone and an influence and inspiration to his peers and followers alike, Rakim first exploded onto the scene with the release of iconic Eric B. is President in 1986 with long time collaborator Eric B. The single marked a turning point in the Rap world – raising the bar for future emcees and revolutionizing the way rhymes are delivered to this day. No serious discussion of the music’s greatest performers is held without a deferential accounting of his achievements, and no serious rap artist grips a microphone without channeling some of his legend.
Isis Asare is the founder and CEO of Sistah Scifi, the first Black-owned sci-fi and fantasy bookstore in the U.S, and Executive Director of SFWA. She is the former Executive Director of Aunt Lute Books and holds degrees from Stanford, Columbia Business School, and Harvard University.
Danielle C. Belton is an award-winning, more than 20-year veteran of the media industry and was most recently the editor-in-chief of the digital-first publication HuffPost. When her hiring was announced in 2021, it was called a “landmark event” by Digiday. In her first year, Axios reported that HuffPost was profitable. Under her leadership, HuffPost was profitable for three years, breaking numerous traffic records, reaching 560 million cross-platform page views in September 2024.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, a lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads. At sixteen, he confessed to an armed carjacking and was sentenced to nine years in adult prison. He discovered poetry and the law in a cell, and those discoveries have shaped everything since. Betts is the author of six books, including the memoir A Question of Freedom, winner of an NAACP Image Award, and most recently Doggerel (W.W. Norton, 2025). A Question of Freedom is a prison memoir that begins with Betts's arrest and ends as he walks out of prison's gates. His forthcoming memoir, Off the Cuff, begins the day he was released and navigates his first twenty years out of prison. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Betts has held fellowships at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute, the Guggenheim Foundation, New America, and the Aspen Institute. His organization, Freedom Reads, is the only one in the country dedicated to opening libraries inside prison cellblocks. Betts founded it on a simple conviction: freedom begins with a book.
Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and MacDowell Arts Advocacy awardee, is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Art for Justice, AIR Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, the Mellon Foundation, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, and Ucross. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for a play by Steppenwolf Theatre), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne currently tours Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times) and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College and is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.
SASHA BONÉT is a writer and cultural critic based in New York City. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. Bonét is a professor of creative writing for Columbia University and Barnard College.
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Jaylene Clark Owens is an AUDELCO and Barrymore award-winning actress, spoken word poet, and author from Harlem, based in the Greater Philadelphia region. Through her spoken word poetry, she uses language to captivate, motivate, and educate through performance, children’s literature, theatre, digital storytelling, and curated community spaces. She is the author of A Black Girl and Her Braids, a picture book adapted from her viral spoken word poem. Jaylene is a series regular on PBS Kids’ Albie’s Elevator, a company member at the Tony Award-winning Wilma Theater, and the creator of poetry that has reached millions across digital platforms.
Naomi Extra is a poet, writer, scholar, and cartoonist. In both her creative and scholarly work, she explores the themes of pleasure and agency in the lives of black women and girls. Her writing and comics have been published in places like The Black Scholar, The New Yorker, Transition Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches in the English department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Nadia Fisher is an illustrator, author, and storyteller who creates heartwarming stories that affirm children, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. Her first illustrated picture book was Daddy Dressed Me by Michael and Ava Gardner (Aladdin, 2023). She has since illustrated I Am the Spirit of Justice, Little People, BIG DREAMS: Simone Biles, Daddy & Me: Side By Side—a Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year (2024)—and Create Your Bright Ideas by Jess Ekstrom, as well as several middle-grade book covers, including With Just One Wing by Coretta Scott King Award Honoree Brenda Woods. Her debut author-illustrator picture book, At the Cookout, was released by Putnam Young Readers in April 2026.
Harold Green III is an ever-evolving storyteller whose lyrical voice manifests in books, albums, and performances of all kinds, from TEDx Talks to innovative collaborations including one with fatherhood.gov. He is the architect of the artistic collective Flowers for the Living, where Harold performs poetry accompanied by esteemed singers and musicians. A proud son, brother, husband, father, teacher, coach, and mentor, he lives in Chicago with his family.
Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has a lifelong love of Visual Afrofutuism, Pulp entertainment, and action films. He holds other Afrofuturists such as Samuel R Delany, Octavia Butler, Pedro Bell, and Overton Lloyd as major influences.
NIKKY FINNEY is the author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. Her new collection of poems, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry, was released in 2020. Finney is Carolina Distinguished Professor at USC in Columbia where she is also Director of the Ernest A. Finney Jr. Cultural Arts Center.
Rob Franklin is the author of Great Black Hope, which was published in June 2025. A national bestseller, his debut novel was nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence — it was named a “Best Book of the Year” by TIME, Vogue, NPR, and Vanity Fair, among others. A co-founder of Art for Black Lives, Franklin holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from NYU’s Creative Writing program. He teaches writing at School of Visual Arts and edits fiction for Joyland. He lives in New York.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is an author and visual artist. She is the recipient of the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and was selected as a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. Griffiths' writing has appeared in British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and many others. Her debut novel, Promise, was a Kirkus Reviews and Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year. She is a recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Yaddo, Kimbilio, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Her highly acclaimed memoir, The Flower Bearers, was published in January 2026.
Andrea Hairston is a novelist, poet, playwright, and L. Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor Emerita of Theatre and Africana Studies at Smith College. Novels: The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays; Archangels of Funk, on the 2025 Le Guin Prize shortlist; Mindscape, Carl Brandon award winner, finalist for the Phillip K. Dick and Otherwise awards; Will Do Magic For Small Change, a New York Times Editor’s pick and finalist for the Mythopoeic, Lambda, and Otherwise Awards; Redwood and Wildfire, a 2022 Washington Post Best Book, Otherwise and Carl Brandon winner; and Master of Poisons on Kirkus Review’s Best SF&F of 2020.
Erika Hardison is a cultural journalist and founder of Fabulize—a Black feminist nerd magazine. Her work has been published in HuffPo, Elite Daily, Book Riot and Publishers Weekly.
candice iloh is the award-winning author of young adult novels, Every Body Looking, Break This House, and Salt the Water. A 2020 National Book Award Finalist and 2021 Printz Honoree, candice is a first-generation Nigerian-American writer whose books center home. They are a 2023 PEW Center for Arts & Heritage fellow and 2024 Leeway Foundation Transformation Awardee. When not writing, they teach creative writing for young people and popular fiction to both undergraduate and graduate students. EMEKA, EAT EGUSI! is their first picture book.
Karine Jean-Pierre served as White House Press Secretary and Senior Advisor to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., becoming the first Black person and first openly queer person to hold the role. Previously, she served in the Obama-Biden White House and on President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign as Deputy Battleground States Director. Karine also managed Tish James’s successful campaign for New York City Public Advocate, helping make history with James becoming the first woman elected to the office. She is the author of Moving Forward and Independent, holds a master’s degree from Columbia University, and is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
Dimitry Elias Léger is the author of God Loves Haiti, a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Fortune, Granta, The Miami Herald, Literary Hub, The Millions, and The Source. Beyond his writing, Léger studied geopolitics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and served as an advisor to the United Nations for a decade. He lives between Brooklyn, Geneva, and Martinique.
Jamilah Lemieux is a writer, cultural critic, and pioneering Black feminist blogger whose work has helped shape modern conversations about race, gender, and media. She first gained national recognition for her influential digital commentary on Black women’s lives and representation, and went on to become a leading voice in contemporary feminist discourse. Jamilah has written for major publications including Vanity Fair, Ebony, Essence, and the Los Angeles Times, and her work has appeared across television, podcasts, and national media platforms.
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Kyle T. Mays is an Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) writer and scholar. He is a professor of African American studies, American Indian studies, and history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author or co-author of four books, including Rethinking the Red Power Movement (with Sam Hitchmough), City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, and Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America.
Carrie R. Moore is the author of the story collection Make Your Way Home, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Fiction. Among other publications, her writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Oprah Daily, American Short Fiction, The Sewanee Review, and One Story. She earned her MFA at the Michener Center for Writers, and in 2026, the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree. Born in Georgia, she resides in Texas with her husband, where she continues to write about Black love and longing.
Walter Mosley is the author of 60 critically-acclaimed books of fiction nonfiction, memoir and plays. His work has been translated into 25 languages. From the first novel he published, Devil in a Blue Dress with its protagonist Easy Rawlins, Mosley’s work has explored the lives of Black men and women in America—past, present, and future—in a rich exploration crossing into every genre from mystery to science fiction, literary fiction to YA, speculative fiction to erotica. His latest book, Ghalen, explores the many faces of love—romantic, familial, platonic—and the power of community.
Leslie-Ann Murray is a fiction writer from Trinidad & Tobago, and a citizen of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. She created Brown Girl Book Lover, a social media platform where she interviews diverse writers and reviews books that should be at the forefront of our imagination. Leslie-Ann is working on her first nonfiction essay collection, This Has Made Us Beautiful, about incarceration, race, immigration, education, and the overwhelming impact of these political forces on herself and her community members. She has been published in Poets & Writers, Zone 3, The Audacity, among other publications.
R.J. Owens is an author who’s been engaged as a community storyteller with the Oakland Tribune, a retail advertising copywriter, and an attorney editor for a legal treatise. Walk the Walk is inspired by his interest in the civil rights movement and in portraying the resiliency and courage of children in trying situations. R.J. is a native of Chicago, Illinois, and a longtime resident of Oakland, California. He received a JD from Berkeley Law and pursued an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. R.J.’s picture books include A Song So Black, So Proud!, Cowgirl Dreaming, and Sunshine’s Coming Through. R.J. is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
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sadé powell is a concrete poet based in Staten Island, NY, working at the intersections of experimental print and paper techniques. Using the sonic, kinesthetic, and linguistic elements of her Royal typewriter, her work explores black vernacularity, orthographic disruption, and the poetics of concealment. Shaped by growing up across all five boroughs of New York City, powell considers the grammars and nongrammars of black life, relation, and memory. Her practice attends to tensions between witnessing, withholding, and legibility. She holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and serves on the editorial collective of Women & Performance Journal.
C. Riley Snorton is a cultural theorist whose work focuses on racial, sexual, and transgender histories and cultural productions in Africa and the Diaspora. He is the author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (2014) and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (2017), which received numerous honors, including the John Boswell Prize, William Sanders Scarborough Prize, Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, and Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies. Snorton is co-editor of Saturation: Race, Art and the Circulation of Value (2020) and The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers (2024), and co-author of the forthcoming A Black Queer History of the United States (2026). He is currently working on Black Trans Matters, a monograph examining global Black trans life through the intersections of Black ecocriticism and trans studies. Snorton is jointly appointed with the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University.
TJ Sterling is an artist, writer and the president and lead artist of RAE Comics, which stands for Red, Arcis, the Latin word for stronghold, fortress or house and Entertainment. RAE Comics features diverse and underrepresented characters that go outside traditional American comics mixed with Eastern philosophies, creating something unique.
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Originally from East London and a longtime Harlem resident, Stormin’ Norman has spent decades at the forefront of New York’s music scene. Stormin’ was part of the WBLS 107.5FM Thunderstorm DJ collective, which premiered live mixing to daytime radio. His signature stylings led to packing out NYC’s top clubs, and Time Out Magazine awarded him Top NYC DJ. He has taken Sundae Sermon from Harlem to all the boroughs and onto global stages including Art Basel — Miami, Australia and South Africa. From creating Disco Sequestered — one of three Twitch streams launched during the pandemic — to most recently opening for legendary Disco Queen Gloria Gaynor, Stormin’ keeps the jams coming. Stormin’ has established a Non-For- Profit 501C3 arm named Sundae Sermon For The People, supporting mentorship, Cancer Awareness and Domestic Violence.
ReShonda Tate is the national bestselling author of more than 50 books. Her novel, Let the Church Say Amen, was made into a film directed by actress Regina King, and produced by TD Jakes and Queen Latifah. Her book, The Secret She Kept, was also made into a TV One movie starring Kyla Pratt. ReShonda made appearances in both movies. She wrote a movie, Christmas with my Ex, which will run on TV One this winter. A well-respected journalist and former TV News Anchor, ReShonda is currently Managing Editor for the Defender Newspaper and also works as a professional editor, ghostwriter, and literary consultant.
Lana Turner, a native of New York’s Harlem, is a reader, writer, thinker and researcher with a keen interest in the elements of art and style in black culture and why this meditation matters. Ms. Turner works as a real estate professional, archivist, and produces chamber music salons and literary events. She is co-founder and chair of The Literary Society (1982), a New York City book discussion group based in Harlem.
Malika Lee Whitney is the Artistic Director of Pickney Productions, a Harlem-based arts, culture, and education collective. A performance artist, storyteller, poet, playwright, producer, and author of the critically acclaimed biography Bob Marley: Reggae King of the World, her work has been presented at venues including the Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, Harlem Stage, Joe’s Pub, SummerStage, and The Schomburg Center. Her global travels throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Central and South America have informed creative initiatives focused on arts, education, and social justice. Whitney is also the creator of the Significant Elders Oral History Project and Double Dutch Dreamz, was recently named a Cultural Ambassador for The Harder They Come musical at The Public Theater, serves as a moderator, panelist, and emcee for cultural events, and is an ordained Interfaith Minister, Bard College alumna, and current Columbia University student.
Emil Wilbekin is the CEO and Founder of Native Son, a movement, community and platform created to amplify the voice and visibility of Black gay and queer men. He is also a Deacon at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem. Wilbekin is an Assistant Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City where he teaches journalism, public relations, and magazine feature writing. Emil Wilbekin is a multimedia maverick who contributes to The New York Times T Magazine, Vogue, The Cut, Architectural Digest, Time, Essence, Ebony, The Advocate, and Town & Country. He is the Co-Producer and Co-Writer on the documentary The Remix: Hip Hip X Fashion.
Shyheim Williams is a Humanities doctoral candidate with a concentration in English at Clark Atlanta University. His research centers Black speculative thought, archival studies, and Africana digital humanities. He has served as the Digital Humanities Program Manager at the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum since July 2023. His role at the museum centers digitizing and generating metadata for CAUAM’s permanent collection as a partner in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s HBCU History & Culture Access Consortium.
Raquel Willis is an award-winning activist, writer, and media strategist dedicated to collective liberation. She is the co-founder and strategic director of the Gender Liberation Movement, host of the podcasts Afterlives and Queer Chronicles, and author of The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation. A former national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, Raquel made history as the first openly Black transgender woman in a senior editorial role at a major U.S. magazine (Out). A TIME Woman of the Year and TIME100 honoree, she continues to shape culture through storytelling, strategy, and advocacy for Black trans freedom.
Marcia Withers is the wife of the late music icon, singer/songwriter Bill Withers. She oversaw Bill’s career management and as head of Withers Entertainment and the Mattie Music Group in Los Angeles, she controls the family’s publishing companies, and its worldwide sub-publisher representatives. She has been instrumental in the placement of Bill’s songs in countless films, television programs and other media, and played a creative role in many of Bill’s recording compilations. She is the co-producer of The Essential Bill Withers and a tribute show at Carnegie Hall in 2015.
Kori Withers is a singer-songwriter and the daughter of Bill Withers. As a guest of her father, she has performed with legends Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Hal David, and Charles Fox, as well as with contemporary artists Aloe Blacc, Gregory Porter, Eric Benét, and Ed Sheeran. A few personal highlights for Kori were performing with her father at his Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction (2006) and at Oprah Winfrey’s “Legends Who Paved The Way Gospel Brunch” (2015). Kori currently serves on the board of FreeHorse Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating nature-based arts education for people with diverse abilities.
Ytasha L. Womack is a filmmaker, futurist, and the author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, and Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity. Womack is a contributor to the Smithsonian exhibit companion title Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. Womack has taught and lectured on Afrofuturism to audiences ranging from Carnegie Hall and the Smithsonian, to Afropunk in Brooklyn and the Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam, from Saint Etienne School of Architecture in France to MIT Media Lab's "Beyond the Cradle" in Boston.