CARLA BLANK is a writer, editor, and teacher who has lectured at the University of California-Berkeley, Dartmouth College, and the University of Washington, among other places. The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 to promote and disseminate contemporary American multicultural literature. Its mandate is driven by the idea that America's diversity necessitates interaction and sharing in place of appropriation and antagonism.

Ishmael Reed is the author of over twenty-five books including Mumbo Jumbo, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Juice!. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or Neo-Hoodooism as he calls it. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, retiring in 2005. In 2003, he received the coveted Otto Award for political theater.