ALEXIS DE VEAUX is one of a stellar list of American writers highlighted by LIT CITY, a  public art initiative of banners bearing their names and images in downtown Buffalo, New York,  in recognition of the city’s renowned literary legacy. Co-Founder of The Center for Poetic Healing, a project of Lyrical Democracies (with Kathy Engel), and of the Flamboyant Ladies Theatre  Company (with Gwendolen Hardwick), ALEXIS DE VEAUX is a black queer feminist independent scholar whose work in multiple genres is internationally known. Born and raised in  Harlem, New York City, Ms. De Veaux is published in five languages-English, Portuguese,  Dutch, Japanese and Serbo-Croatian. Over the past five decades her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, most recently in Mouths of Rain, An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (ed. Briona Simone Jones, 2021). De Veaux is the author of the memoir Spirits In The Street (1973); an award-winning children’s book, Na-ni (1973); the biography-in prose, Don’t Explain, A Song of Billie Holiday (1980); Blue Heat: A Portfolio of Poems and  Drawings (1985); the poems, Spirit Talk (1997); and An Enchanted Hair Tale (1987), a recipient of the 1988 Coretta Scott King Award presented by the American Library Association and  the 1991 Lorraine Hansberry Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature. Her plays include Circles, (1972); The Tapestry (1975); A Season to Unravel (1979); NO (1980); and Elbow Rooms (1986).

De Veaux also authored Warrior Poet, A Biography of Audre Lorde (2004). The first biography of the pioneering lesbian poet, Warrior Poet has won several prestigious awards including  the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Legacy Award, Nonfiction (2005), the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award  (2004), and the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Biography (2004). In other media, Ms.  De Veaux’s work appears on several recordings, including the highly-acclaimed album, Sisterfire  (Olivia Records, 1985). As an artist and lecturer she has traveled extensively throughout the  United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Japan and Europe; and is recognized for her on-going contributions to a number of community-based organizations.

Ms. De Veaux was a tenured member of the faculty of the University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY,  1992-2013; teaching, most recently, as Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies in  the Department of Transnational Studies. Her novel, Yabo, was published by Redbone Press  (2014) and was awarded the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is on the  board of the Roadwork Center for Cultures in Disputed Territory and co-founder (with Amy  Horowitz) of The Enclave Habitat, a network of socially conscious international artists and activists. Her latest work, JesusDevil, The Parables was published by AK Press in the spring of 2023.

Further information is available on her author website, alexisdeveaux.com.

SOKARI EKINE is a Nigerian British queer feminist artist and visual scholar who has worked and lived in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the US.

An artist of considerable longevity, Sokari’s work focuses on decolonization, African spiritual practices, migration, and queer and trans bodies in black diasporas.