Born in Alexandria, Louisiana, Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) deeply involved himself in the Harlem Renaissance and carved out a long career as a writer and academic. He is author of Black Thunder and other novels and editor of Father of the Blues: An Autobiography, by W. C. Handy. He also wrote poetry, short stories, and essays. Michael P. Bibler teaches American literature at the University of Manchester and is the author of Cotton's Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968. Jessica Adams is the author of Wounds of Returning: Race, Memory, and Property on the Postslavery Plantation.
