The ZAMI NOBLA Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Alexis Pauline Gumbs’

Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

Book Reading Information:

https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/event/survival-promise-eternal-life-audre-lorde-homecoming-celebration-alexis-pauline-gumbs-and

Book Reading Registration:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/survival-is-a-promise-the-eternal-life-of-audre-lorde-tickets-938622193247?aff=oddtdtcreator

A queer black troublemaker, a black feminist love evangelist and a prayer poet priestess,

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs was the first scholar to research the Audre Lorde Papers at Spelman College, the June Jordan Papers at Harvard University, and the Lucille Clifton Papers at Emory University during her dissertation research. We are eagerly awaiting her forthcoming biography, Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde on August 20, 2024.

https://www.alexispauline.com/

Alexis’s work as a media maker and her curricula for participatory digital education have been activated in 143 countries.  Her digital distribution initiative BrokenBeautiful Press, her work as co-founder of Quirky Black Girls and her loving participation in the Women of Color Bloggers Network in the early 2000’s established her as one of the forerunners of the social media life of feminist critical and creative practice.   Alexis has been honored with many awards from her communities of practice including being lifted up on lists such as UTNE Readers 50 Visionaries Transforming the World, The Advocate’s 40 under 40, Go Magazines 100 Women We Love, the Bitch 50 List, ColorLines 10 LGBTQ Leaders Transforming the South, Reproductive Justice Reality Check’s Sheroes and more.  She is a proud recipient of the Too Sexy for 501C-3 trophy, a Black Women’s Blueprint Visionary Award and the Barnard College Outstanding Young Alumna Award.

From 2017-2019, Alexis served as visiting Winton Chair at University of Minnesota where she collaborated with Black feminist artists in the legacy of Laurie Carlos to create collaborative performances based on her books Spill and M Archive.  During that time she served as dramaturg for the award winning world premiere of Sharon Bridgforth’s Dat Black Mermaid Man Lady directed by Ebony Noelle Golden.

Alexis is a 2023 Windham-Campbell Prize Winner in Poetry. Alexis’s most recent book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals won the 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction.

Alexis was a 2020-2021 National Humanities Center Fellow, funded by the Founders Award, and is a 2022 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow.   

Original Photography of Alexis Pauline Gumbs by:

Sufia Ikbal-Doucet

Graphic Design of cover art image by:

Angela Denise Davis

This book party was hosted on May 27, 2023, at Charis Books & More in Decatur, Georgia. It featured esteemed writer Sharon Bridgforth in conversation with ZAMI NOBLA creative director Angela Denise Davis in celebration of bull-jean & dem/dey back.

You can view the YouTube video of this event at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6EcaVl7dxo

The ZNP previous interview of Sharon Bridgforth:

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/zaminobla/id/21629876

Bull-jean & dem/dey back is a collection that unites two performance/novels centered on the southern-Black-butch-heroine, bull-jean. The Lambda Literary Award-winning bull-jean stories was first published by RedBone Press in 1998 and follows the journey of love rekindling throughout the lifetimes of bull-dog-jean. After a twenty-two-year hiatus, bull-dog-jean triumphantly returns in bull-jean/we wake. As the Narrator grieves the loss of their elders and seeks healing, they summon bull-jean for guidance. Be sure not to miss this inspiring event!

A 2022 Winner of Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, Sharon Bridgforth is 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, a 2022-2023 McKnight National Fellow and a New Dramatists alumnae. She has received support from The Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. Her work is featured in Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Mouths of Rain an Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought and Feminist Studies Vol 48  Number 1, honoring 40 years of This Bridge Called by Back and But Some of Us Are Brave! Sharon has had the privilege of benefiting from support from the ZAMI NOBLA and Charis Books communities since 1998, when she toured with the RedBone Press edition of the bull-jean stories. In her new book, bull-jean & dem/dey back (53rd State Press) bull-jean returns in two performance/novels - both will be produced as main stage productions at Pillsbury House + Theatre in Minneapolis, MN in 2023. More at:

https://www.sharonbridgforth.com

M Shelly Conner, Ph.D.,  is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing
at the University of Central Arkansas. Her multi-genre writings
examine culture through a dapperqueer womanist lens and include
publications in Crisis Magazine, the A.V. Club, NBC News, and the
Grio. Her debut novel "everyman", is currently available in hard cover,
paperback, ebook, and audiobook. 

Shelly is repped by Beth Marshea at
Ladderbird Agency.

Her website:
http://mshellyconner.com/m

Buy the book:
https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/everyman-dat0.html#541=94

The ZAMI NOBLA Podcast celebrated four years of serving as a sound source for Black lesbian herstory in August 2022. This episodes celebrates that achievement with excerpts from various episodes. Links to each episode can be found below.

Kamilah Aisha Moon Talks about the Human Business of Poetry

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/kamilah-aisha-moon-talks-about-the-human-business-of-poetry

Cynthia Mckinney Takes on Heart Atttack Hill & Loses 52 Pounds

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/cynthia-mckinney-takes-on-heart-atttack-hill-loses-52-pounds

Cheryl Clarke Takes us to School

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/cheryl-clarke-takes-us-to-school

Deidre McCalla is no 9 to 5 Singer Songwriter

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/deidre-mccalla-is-no-9-to-5-singer-songwriter

Jillian Ford Talks Shop on Education, Innovation, and DeColonized Classrooms

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/jillian-ford-talks-shop-on-education-innovation-and-decolonized-classrooms

Joi and Jane Mitchell Talk about Work and Residency Abroad

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/joi-and-jane-mitchell-talk-about-work-and-residency-abroad

Jowanna Tillman and Edonna Koon Talk about Living the RV Life

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/jowanna-tillman-and-edonna-koon-talk-about-living-the-rv-life

Rev. Maressa Pendermon Speaks on Normalizing Grief and Creating a Toolbox for Emotional Well-being

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/rev-maressa-pendermon-speaks-on-normalizing-grief-and-creating-a-toolbox-for-emotional-well-being

Black Lesbian Comic Karen Williams Gets Serious About the Business of Being Funny

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/black-lesbian-comic-karen-williams-gets-serious-about-the-business-of-being-funny

Ericka Huggins on Mothers, Mindfulness, and Meditation

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/ericka-huggins-on-mothers-mindfulness-and-meditation

Trey Anthony Shines her Limelight on Love, Living Out Loud, and Vulnerability

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/ep-002-trey-anthony-shines-her-limelight-on-love-living-out-loud-and-vulnerability

Dr. Tonia Poteat on, "Deserving Research that Reflects Your Real Life Lived Experience

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/dr-tonia-poteat-on-deserving-research-that-reflects-your-real-life-lived-experience

Michelle Elizabeth Brown Talks about Podcasting, Poetry, and Pride

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/michelle-elizabeth-brown-talks-about-podcasting-poetry-and-pride

Dr. Lourdes Dolores Follins On Black LGBT Health, Yoruba Spirituality, and Therapy

https://zaminobla.libsyn.com/dr-lourdes-dolores-follins-on-black-lbgbt-health-yoruba-spirituality-and-therapy

Dr. Moya Bailey is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Her work focuses on marginalized groups' use of digital media to promote social justice and she is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She is the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network and the Board President of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit-based movement media organization that supports an ever growing network of activists and organizers. She is a co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, 2020) and is the author of Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (New York University Press, 2021).

Visit her website:
https://www.moyabailey.com/

This interview was recorded via video conference on  October 29, 2021 by Angela Denise Davis. Gaye Adegbalola talked about her early years in Virginia, college life in Boston, and her career as a Blues musician, griot, and activist.

Gaye Adegbalola’s website:

https://adegbalola.com/

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/GayeAdegbalolaMusician/

Gaye Todd Adegbalola, a Blues Music Award winner, is best known musically as a founding member of Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women (1984 – 2009). The group recorded exclusively with Alligator Records. Additionally, she has 6 recordings on her own label, Hot Toddy Music (Todd is her family name).

Gaye was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia where she sat-in, picketed and protested its racism. She graduated as valedictorian of the then-segregated Walker-Grant High School, went “ up North” to Boston University to finish with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. Prior to becoming a teacher, she worked as a technical writer for TRW Systems, a biochemical researcher at Rockefeller University, and a bacteriologist at Harlem Hospital. She has a Master’s degree in Educational Media (with a concentration in photography) from Virginia State University.

Angela interviewed Dr. Emilie M. Townes on October 12, 2021, via video conference. Townes talked about growing up in Durham, North Carolina, her formative years in theological education and parachurch work, and the necessity of having a robust hope.

Emilie M. Townes, an American Baptist clergywoman, is a native of Durham, NC.  She holds a DMin from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a PhD in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University. Townes is the Dean and Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, becoming the first African American to serve as its dean in 2013.  She is the former Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University Divinity School where she was the first African American and first woman to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.  In 2008, she was the first African American woman to serve as president of the American Academy of Religion and recently served as President of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012-2016.  She taught on the faculties of Union Theological Seminary, NY and Saint Paul School of Theology. She is the editor of two collection of essays, author of four books including her groundbreaking book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil.  She is a co-editor of two books. Townes was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. 

Angela sat down with Sharon Bridgforth on October 8, 2021, to record this interview via video conference. Bridgforth talked about her formative years, her pathway to healing, intergenerational mentoring, and her life as a touring artist in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharon Bridgforth's website

https://www.sharonbridgforth.com/

Twin Cities PBS did a special on Pillsbury House Theatre - who GRACIOUSLY chose to feature "dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show!!!" The special premiered on 7/10/21.

https://www.datblackmermaidmanlady.com/the-show

A Doris Duke Performing Artist, Sharon Bridgforth is a writer that creates ritual/jazz theatre. A 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, Sharon has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, the National Performance Network and is a New Dramatists alumnae. Sharon served as a dramaturg for the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative’s Choreographic Fellowship program and has been in residence with: Brown University’s MFA Playwriting Program; University of Iowa’s MFA Playwrights Program; The Theatre School at DePaul University; allgo, A Texas Statewide QPOC Organization; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Widely published, Sharon author of the Lambda Literary award winning, the bull-jean stories, and her performance piece, delta dandi, is published in solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews and essays. Sharon is grateful to say that she has been supported by the Zami community since 1998 - when she and RedBone Press Founder and Editor, Lisa C. Moore were first out on the road with the bull-jean stories.

This interview was recorded by Angela Denise Davis on October 14, 2021, via video conference. Deidre McCalla sat down with Angela to talk about McCalla’s early life in New York, her start in music, the herstory of her place in the women’s music movement, and the way the COVID-19 pandemic changed her life.

The music heard in the interview was used courtesy of Deidre McCalla. You can enjoy the full tracks on YouTube at the following links:

Walk Me Down to the River

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZEY7idOCAc

I Do Not Walk This Path Alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhNnJx6Cd58

Deidre’s website: https://deidremccalla.com/

Photo used in episode art: Irene Young

Playing For Keeps is an apt title for the latest cd from singer/songwriter Deidre McCalla. From the moment Deidre takes the stage, her engaging presence and irresistible blend of folk, country, rock, and pop seize the listeners by the heart and won't let go.

Deidre McCalla came of age in the fiery blaze of NYC's folk heyday - a time when Greenwich Village clubs were filled with the likes of Dylan, Baez, and Ochs; a time when Motown ruled the top of the charts and the streets of America screamed with anger and civil unrest. Her first album, Fur Coats and Blue Jeans, was released when Deidre was 19 and a student at Vassar College. With a theater degree tucked under her belt and an acoustic guitar tossed in the back of a battered Buick station wagon, Deidre McCalla hit the proverbial road and never looked back. Deidre later majored in jazz guitar at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and released three albums with the pioneering women's music label Olivia Records.

The Miami Herald affectionately dubs her a "dreadlocked troubadour." From Maui to Maine, college coffeehouses to Carnegie Hall, Deidre McCalla is a much beloved performer in both folk and women's music circles and has shared the stage with a long list of notables that includes Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, Holly Near, Odetta, Cris Williamson, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. With five critically acclaimed albums to her credit, Deidre McCalla remains the ever seeking road warrior, her words and music chronicling our strengths and weaknesses and celebrating the power and diversity of the human spirit.

A single parent residing in Georgia with her son, Deidre has taught Performance at Warren Wilson College's Swannanoa Gathering. Deidre's work has been published in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, The Original Coming Out Stories, and Chrysalis: A Feminist Quarterly, and she is featured in The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader.

Deidre is a proud member of AFM Local 1000 and the North American Folk Alliance.

On August 19, 2021, Angela sat down with Sherri Jackson to record her story about living in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic as a healthcare professional.

Jackson is a healthcare provider,minister and activist. She has a wide range of LBGTQ.and AIDS organizational involvement. She has been a volunteer with the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club-Health Committee,and the Chicago Department of Public Health.She has been a board member of Horizon Community Services (1996-2000) was a Human Rights Campaign Congressional Action Coordinator (1997-1998) was with Chicago Black Lesbian and Gays(1996-2000} as Corresponding Secretary and program chair. Was on the board of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, among many group involvements. Jackson also volunteered as a Chaplain for the Night Ministry in Chicago. As well help organize various events at places of worship centered around women and LBGTQ individuals.