Laban Carrick Hill has taught Literature and Writing at Columbia university, Fordham University, and currently teaches at St. Michael's College in Vermont. He has published his poetry and articles in a number of periodicals including American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, and Onion River Review, and has written twenty middle grade novels for Hyperion and Bantam. He is also the author of LBYR's America Dreaming.

Acclaimed poet, essayist, and lecturer Nikki Giovanni has many published collections of her poetry, including Black Feeling, Black Talk and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not-Quite Poems. Her honors include the NAACP Image Award for Literature in 1998, and the Langston Hughes award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996.