GLAAWc 2024 Speakers

Langston Hughes Literary Keynote

Kimberla Lawson Roby

New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Founder of Successful Women of Faith – The Sisterhood, Kimberla Lawson Roby, has published 29 books which include her nonfiction title, THE WOMAN GOD CREATED YOU TO BE: Finding Success Through Faith—Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally, as well as her novels, such as SISTER FRIENDS FOREVER, SIN OF A WOMAN, A SINFUL CALLING, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, A CHRISTMAS PRAYER, THE PRODIGAL SON, THE PERFECT MARRIAGE, THE REVEREND’S WIFE, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR, SIN NO MORE, CASTING THE FIRST STONE, and her debut title, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, which was originally self-published through her own company, Lenox Press. She has sold more than 3 million copies of her books, and they have frequented numerous bestseller lists, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Essence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Christian News, AALBC.com, Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, The Dallas Morning News, The Austin Chronicle and many others. Kimberla is also the host of The Woman God Created You to Be Podcast.

Over the years, Kimberla has spoken to thousands of women at churches, conferences, expos, workshops, luncheons, libraries, colleges, universities, and bookstores. She shares her own personal journey straight from her heart and has a strong passion toward helping women become all whom God created them to be.

Kimberla is the 2013 NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction, the recipient of the 2017 SOAR Radio Trailblazer of Honor award, the 2017 Southwest Florida Reading Festival Distinguished Author award, the 2017 AAMBC Christian Fiction Author of the Year award and the 2014 AAMBC Female Author of the Year award, the 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013 African-American Literary Awards Show (New York, NY) Female Author of the Year award, the Blackboard Fiction Book of the Year Award in 2001 for CASTING THE FIRST STONE, and also in 2001, Kimberla was inducted into the Rock Valley College Alumni Hall of Fame (Rockford, IL). Additionally, in August 2020, she was named by USA Today as one of the 100 black novelists you should read; in February 2021, her book, The Woman God Created You to Be: Finding Success Through Faith—Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional, giving her four NAACP Image Award nominations in total, and in March 2024, she received the Rockford Area Arts Award for Literary Excellence from the Rockford Area Arts Council in Illinois. Kimberla also serves on two Rockford-area boards: the YWCA Northwestern Illinois Foundation Board and the Friends of the Coronado Foundation Board.

Kimberla’s books deal with very real issues, including the importance of sisterhood, women empowerment, Christian values, family values, moral values, marriage, infidelity, single motherhood, breast cancer, infertility, sibling rivalry, domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, mental illness, the caregiving of a parent, problems within the church, racial and gender discrimination in the workplace, and drug and gambling addiction, to name a few. In addition, Kimberla’s books offer a message of redemption, forgiveness, and the realities of everyday life. Kimberla resides in Illinois with her husband, Will.

Contact with Kimberla Lawson Roby

Email: kim@kimroby.com

Website: www.kimroby.com

Website: www.womenwhowritebooks.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/kimberlalawsonroby

Instagram: www.instagram.com/kimberlalawsonroby

Twitter: www.twitter.com/KimberlaLRoby LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlalawsonroby/

For media interview requests, please send an email to: publicity@kimroby.com.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1901–1967) was a poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist, and a significant figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was the descendant of enslaved African American women and white slave owners in Kentucky. He attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote his first poetry, short stories, and dramatic plays. After a short time in New York, he spent the early 1920s traveling through West Africa and Europe, living in Paris and England.

Hughes returned to the United States in 1924 and to Harlem after graduating from Lincoln University in 1929. His first poem was published in 1921 in The Crisis and he published his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues in 1926. Hughes’s influential work focused on a racial consciousness devoid of hate. In 1926, he published what would be considered a manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance in The Nation: “The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves.”

Source: National Museum of African American History & Culture – Smithsonian

Alice Dunbar Nelson Professional Keynote Speaker

Cherise Fisher

About Cherise Fisher

Cherise Fisher began her career in publishing more than twenty-five years ago, spending many years editing and publishing several national bestselling and award winning authors including George Lopez, Nelson George, Victoria Christopher Murray, Bil Wright, and Tony Parsons at Simon & Schuster and Plume (an imprint of Penguin Random House), where she was Editor-in-Chief.

As an agent with Wendy Sherman Associates, she has represented story-driven fiction with full bodied characters, both contemporary and historical. She seeks out memoirs and narrative nonfiction that showcase the diversity of human experience, and well-platformed non-fiction writers who seek to provoke, inspire, and educate on diverse subjects, including self-help, finance and career, health and wellness, spirituality, and social justice.

An active member of the American Association of Literary Agents, and a very popular workshop leader for several writer’s conferences, Cherise also teaches the “Introduction to Publishing” class as a part of the Publishing Certificate Program at the City College of New York.

Her intention is that all the books she helps bring into the world are relevant, enduring, and help readers maximize their lives.

Alice Dunbar Nelson

Poet, essayist, diarist, and activist Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to mixed-race parents. Her African American, Anglo, Native American, and Creole heritage contributed to her complex understandings of gender, race, and ethnicity, subjects she often addressed in her work. She graduated from Straight University (now Dillard University) and taught in the New Orleans public schools. Her first book, Violets and Other Tales (1895), was published when she was just 20. Her second collection, The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899) explored the lives of creole and anglicized characters. Works exploring racism and racial oppression were largely rejected by publishers during her lifetime, a situation which, according to Sheila Smith McKoy, “made it difficult for both readers and critics to access Dunbar-Nelson’s work.”

A writer of short stories, essays, and poems, Dunbar-Nelson was comfortable in many genres but was best known for her prose. One of the few female African American diarists of the early 20th century, she portrays the complicated reality of African American women and intellectuals, addressing topics such as racism, oppression, family, work, and sexuality. According to Gloria T. Hull, “Dunbar-Nelson perforce wrote in the interstices of a busy existence unsupported (except for one brief period) by any of the money or leisure traditionally associated with people of letters. Doggedly determined to be an author, she plied her trade… carried forward on the flow of words that came quite easily for her. Interestingly enough, she called all of her writing ‘producing literature,’ in a humorously ironic leveling of forms and types. But just as ironically, her status is lowered since the more belletristic genres of poetry and fiction are more valued than the noncanonical forms—notably the diary and journalistic essay—that claimed so much of her attention.” Hull edited the volume Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1984).

In 1898 she married the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar; they separated in 1902, and Dunbar-Nelson moved to Wilmington, Delaware. She taught at Howard High School, the State College for Colored Students (now Delaware State College), and Howard University, and she continued to publish essays, poetry, and newspaper articles. She married Arthur Callis in 1910, though the couple also divorced. Coeditor of A.M.E Reivew in these years, Dunbar-Nelson also published Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence (1914).

Dunbar-Nelson was politically active, organizing for the women’s suffrage movement in the mid-Atlantic states and acting as field representative for the Woman’s Committee of the Council of Defense in 1918; she also campaigned for the passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1924. In 1916 she married Robert J. Nelson. In her later years she published poetry in Black newspapers such as the Crisis, Ebony and Topaz, and Opportunity. She also edited The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer (1920) and, with Nelson, coedited the Wilmington Advocate. She died in Philadelphia.

Opening Speakers

Dr. Leah Lewis, Founder & Executive Producer

Dr. Leah C. Lewis, J.D., is a serial entrepreneur and nonprofit executive. Leah is the Founder and Executive Director of Little Lumpy’s Center for Educational Initiatives, whose signature event is the Great Lakes African American Writers Conference (GLAAWC pronounced “glossy”) of which Leah is the Executive Producer. In 2020, GLAAWC’s virtual conference reached over 5600 people in twenty states and four international countries. Her articles and commentary have appeared in The Christian Century, Cleveland Scene, Blavity.com, ForHarriet.com, and a host of other outlets.

She is the Founder of Three Butterflies Entertainment & Press LLC. Leah is a writer, documentary filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and event producer. She is the author of Little Lumpy’s Book of Blessings, which serves as the subject of a proposed animated children’s TV show, Little Lumpy’s Travelogue. In cooperation with DEMASKUS Theater Collective, the August Wilson Center, and Alumni Theater Company, and a host of actors and crew, A Dramatic Reading of the pilot script, “Penguin Problems in the Galapagos Islands,” for Little Lumpy’s Travelogue took place during The Well Reading Series.

Currently, Leah aims to complete, Black Buckeyes: A Tale of Two Cities, a documentary and an independent production examining the lived and historical realities of African Americans in Cleveland and Cincinnati. She has completed Leo’s Legacy for MidTown Cleveland Inc., which highlights Cleveland’s famed Leo’s Casino nightclub of the late 1960s and early 1970s. She also serves as co-producer of “Black Mary” a co-production of POST Theatrical and DEMASKUS Theater Collective highlighting the life of Mary Fields, the first African American Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States, which will be streamed during Juneteenth 2021. Rev. Dr. Lewis serves as the spiritual consultant on the project and the forthcoming project tentatively titled “Chains to Gains.”

Erica Marks

Erica Marks has dedicated herself to uplifting communities through her various endeavors. As a public librarian at the Cleveland Public Library for twenty-two years, she pioneered unique and unconventional programming for youth, including Books-n-Beats, Girl Power!, Man Up, CLE (Cleveland), and the #CLEReads Young Adult Book Festival. Inspired by her childhood dance group, Erica founded G.W.A. Global Girls with Attitude, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. G.W.A. empowers girls worldwide through literacy, the arts, and movement. Erica’s leadership extends to professional associations like the American Library Association. She has served on prestigious committees, including the 2020 Randolph Caldecott Committee, the 2017-2018 Coretta Scott King Book Awards, and the 2023 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards.

Patrice Wade-Johnson, MC

Patrice Wade-Johnson is a writer, producer, and speaker. Honored by the New Pittsburgh Courier as one of their Fifty Women of Excellence, and recognized as an Unsung Hero by the Ivy Charitable Endowment, she is a 2022 Sankofa Color of Achievement Award recipient from the University of Pittsburgh African American Alumni Council. Patrice is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated ®, The Pierians, Inc., DEMASKUS Theater Collective, and the Program Director for GLAAWC. Her creative works include five stage plays: Sitting On Top of the World, Cindy: An Urban Fairytale, In Your Mirror, Lundyn Bridges, Our Song (co-writer); two film shorts: The Take Us (Co-writer), Rhea The Great Detective (Producer); a feature film: Set Free; three novels: Wisdom Seeds, Pieces, The Pirouette; and The Lemonade Ain’t Sweet Enough journal.

Andrea Campbell, MC

Andrea D. Campbell is a professional speaker, consultant and transformational coach. After spending over 20 years in Corporate America as a successful engineer, trainer, and salesperson, she decided to follow her heart’s desire to help others live their best lives…on purpose. Andrea is passionate about inspiring others to be bold and make the intentional change in their lives to achieve a life they desire, love and deserve.

As a two-time cancer survivor, Andrea understands what it takes to be resilient in the face of adversity. She has taken life by the reins to live an authentic, unapologetic, highest version of self. Unselfishly, Andrea wants others to do the same. She wants to ignite the spark needed to help them BE more, DO more and LIVE more.

Andrea is the author of the multiple books:

The Beautiful Journey: Finding Purpose Through Cancer which chronicles her journey through cancer;
The Heart of Radical Caring: A Heart-Centered Approach to Transforming Workplace Culture and Driving Revenue;
God Never Wastes a Hurt: 3 Steps to Move from Pain to Purpose (eBook);
I Need A Man: 7 Winning Strategies to Attract Love

Andrea believes your story is your super power and by not sharing it, you are standing between someone and their greatness. Because of that, she developed a writing program, Ready. Set. Write!, to help people increase their confidence and write their non-fiction book.

Andrea is a certified professional Coach with certifications from Weatherhead School of Management, Brave Thinking Institute and CaPP Institute. Also, she received her MBA from Weatherhead School of Management (Case Western Reserve University), and both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Dawn Arrington, MC

Dawn Arrington is the founder and executive director of Comics at the Corner, a literacy advocacy organization that uses comics books to promote reading in traditionally underinvested communities like the ones she “grew up” and currently reside in. Dawn launched Comics at the Corner’s “Literacy Lounges” in 2023. A Lit Lounge is a pop-up-style community book fair where readers of all levels can engage with the material meaningfully. From “create your own comic” sessions to book exchanges and character discussion groups, Comics at the Corner provides a place where the community can gather, explore, and co-create. Dawn has earned an MBA and an MA in English and Creative Writing. She is a member of several non-profit boards including Literary Cleveland & Larchmere Porchfest and a self-published author with public art/infrastructure credits to her name.

Donnie Lynee, Vocalist

Donnie Lynee is a Soul and R&B singer/songwriter hailing from Cleveland, OH. Her soulful vocals are consistently coupled with exquisite production again and again, as reflected in her numerous singles and two EP releases. Donnie’s recent EP “Grow” made it to #2 on Amazon’s Best Sellers list for Soul Albums. The singer has graced stages as close to home as the House of Blues Cleveland and the Karamu House and as far as Le Pop In in Paris, France. Cleveland.com has named her one of 20 Bands You Need to Know.

Gerrond Thomas, Accompanist

Combine the Ohio sound with the inspiring sounds of the church choir, once the proving ground for R&B singers and musicians, and there you have it—the perfect storm that created composer, singer, and musician, Gerrond Thomas.

Hailing from East Cleveland Ohio, Thomas was singing solos before packed houses by age five and selling out concerts in local churches by the time he was seven. At age 12, he recorded with gospel icon Reverend John P. Kee at The GMWA. Around the same age, he started to be influenced by Take 6, The Winans, Commissioned, The Mississippi Mass Choir and a few West Coast hip hop artists as well: N.W.A.,Tone Loc and the D.O.C., to name a few.

Listen to the Billboard chart topping smooth jazz hit, Funky Boy co-written and produced by Gerrond and the story will be heard and felt…

"Spaces for the Reader: Lessons Learned from Rereading Toni Morrison: A Conversation with Dr. Marilyn Sanders Mobley" Moderated by Eleanor Hayes

Dr. Marilyn S. Mobley

Dr. Marilyn S. Mobley is an Emerita Professor of English and African American Studies at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), where she was the inaugural Vice President for Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity and Chief Diversity Officer (2009-2019). She earned her BA from Barnard College of Columbia University, her MA from NYU, and her PhD from Case Western Reserve University. She was the founding director of African American Studies and Associate Provost at George Mason University, where she was a faculty member in English for 19 years. In February of 2020, she received the Sojourner Truth Award from George Mason for her leadership, scholarship, and teaching at the intersection of race, gender, and social justice and in 2023, she received the Flora Award from the CWRU Flora Stone Mather Center for Women for excellence, influence, and impact in advocating for women’s education and leadership, philanthropy, and commitment to community and diversity.

Her postgraduate studies include coursework at the Howard University School of Divinity, the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she received a certificate in higher education management, the Anderson School of Theology, where she received her certificate in ministry foundations, and the Leadership Focus program where she was ordained as a minister.

Dr. Mobley served as Provost at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina prior to her return to Ohio. She is a Senior Ford Foundation Fellow and a recipient of the YWCA of Cleveland Woman of Achievement Award for 2019. Dr. Mobley currently serves on the board of the Ohio Humanities Council. A former board member of the Cleveland Leadership Center and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), she is a member of the 2010 Class of Leadership Cleveland and immediate past president of Blacks in Management (BIM).

Dr. Mobley is a founding member, former president, former board member, and now lifetime member of the Toni Morrison Society. A published Toni Morrison scholar, whose teaching, research, and scholarship for more than 40 years have focused on race, gender, diversity, social justice and religion in African American literature and culture, she has served as a keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator for campuses, businesses, faith-based, and non-profit organizations, and has done so throughout the United States, and in Canada, Great Britain, France, Ghana, Kenya, Austria, and Egypt. Her talk, “The Paradox of Diversity” was selected for the 2013 TEDxCLE series http://www.tedxcle.com/dr-marilyn-sanders-mobley/.

Dr. Mobley is the author of a spiritual memoir about recovery from the grief of divorce entitled The Strawberry Room, And Other Places Where a Woman Finds Herself (WestBow Press, 2016) and one of the first cross-cultural books on Toni Morrison—Folk Roots and Mythic Wings in Sarah Orne Jewett and Toni Morrison: The Cultural Function of Narrative (LSU Press, 1991). Her most recent book, Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, was published in July of 2024 from Temple University Press.

A proud mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Dr. Mobley is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. As founder, president, and CEO of SandersMobley Consulting, LLC, she supports businesses, non-profit organizations, institutions in higher education, and civic and faith-based organizations by helping them connect insight and action to create a culture of belonging. Dr. Mobley serves as an ordained associate minister and Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist at Arlington Church of God in Akron, Ohio where she leads the Wellness and Grief Recovery ministries. Her current project is at the intersection of faith and social justice.

Eleanor Hayes

Eleanor Hayes is a journalist and multi-Emmy® Award-winning investigative reporter. She anchored television news for stations in Nashville, Milwaukee, Columbus, and her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Eleanor has reported major news events throughout the United States, Europe, and Cuba.

Among her national honors, she received the Death Penalty Information Center’s Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award for enterprise reporting on the imprisonment of an Ohio man whose conviction was described as one of America’s most egregious cases of wrongful conviction. The National Association of Black Journalists awarded her Journalist of the Year.

Eleanor holds a Bachelor of Science with a double major in government and communications from Oberlin College and a Master of Business Administration from Cleveland State University’s Monte Ahuja College of Business, where she was inducted into the hall of fame, and now serves on the Weston Ideation Lab Advisory Board. She is also an inductee into the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame and the Shaker Heights High School Hall of Fame.

As an entrepreneur, Eleanor owned and operated several McDonald’s franchises. She is a freelance writer, public speaker, and voice-over actor, and her firm, Hayes Group Communications, provides communications and change management services. Eleanor is a trustee emerita of the Cleveland Institute of Music and a member of The Links, Incorporated.

Theater Panel

Peter Lawson Jones, Moderator

Peter Lawson Jones is an attorney, business consultant, professional actor, acting coach, dramatist, master of ceremonies and former elected official.

From February 2002, through December 2010, Jones, a graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude in Government) and Harvard Law School, was a member of the Board of Cuyahoga County Commissioners, and its president for three of those years. He previously served two and one-half terms in the Ohio House of Representatives, where he was the ranking member of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee and second vice president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. Jones was formerly the Vice Mayor and a Councilman in the City of Shaker Heights, Ohio. He presently serves, pursuant to a gubernatorial appointment, as a member of the Ohio Arts Council. For the fall term, commencing September, 2023, he served as a grand jury foreman with the General Division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

Jones is the executive producer of Fatherhood 101 a documentary on the critical importance of responsible fatherhood. While a state legislator, he authored the legislation that created the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood and for serveral years served as its president. While a county commissioner, he founded the Cuyahoga County Fatherhood Initiative. In addition to the area of fatherhood programming, he is a consultant in government relations, community engagement and event planning as well as fundraising for arts organizations.

Jones, a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actor’s Equity, has appeared in well over twenty films (A Man Called Otto, White Boy Rick, Alex Cross, The Assassin’s Code, Starve), on network television (NBC’s Chicago Fire and ABC’s Detroit 1-8-7), on stages throughout Northeast Ohio. He received the 2016 Indie Gathering International Film Festival Best Ohio Supporting Actor Award for his work in How to Change the World. Jones’s drama, The Family Line, has been successfully produced at Karamu House, Harvard University and Ohio University. His second play, The Bloodless Jungle, has enjoyed two full productions at Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Land of Cleve, an arts and culture blog, ranked the second production as one of the best in Northeast Ohio in 2017. The play has enjoyed staged readings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Dallas Convention Center, the National Black Theatre Festival, Duquesne University and in Harlem. His most recent work, The Phoenix Society, enjoyed a successful premiere at Playwrights Local in Cleveland in 2022. The drama was commissioned by the Life Exchange Center, a Cleveland nonprofit that assists those in recovery from mental health and substance abuse challenges.

Amongst his numerous honors and awards, Jones was enshrined into the Karamu House Hall of Fame (2004) and the Shaker Heights Alumni Association Hall of Fame (1987). He has also been inducted into The HistoryMakers (2023).

Jones and his spouse Lisa are the proud parents of three children: Ryan Charles, Leah Danielle and Evan Cooke.

Jeanne Madison

Jeanne Madison, Playwright, Actor, and Director. Jeanne, a member of the Dramatist Guild, and the Playwrights Center, is the 2021-22 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow at Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT), where her plays “Showin’ Up Black’, “Eyes of the Bridge”, and “She Walks in Beauty” were produced. She is the recipient of the Room in the House Fellowship at Karamu where her play “Black Coffee” was selected for their corporate diversity program. Her plays have been featured at CPT, Station Hope, the National Black Theatre Festival, and the Ensemble Theatre of Cleveland where she is a member of the Stagewrights Unit. Her numerous acting credits include: Cleveland Scene Theatre Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy for “Sassy Mamas”, and The Cleveland Shakespeare production of “The Taming of the Shrew”; the PBS broadcast of “Greenwood, An American Dream Destroyed”, and on Netflix in “White Noise” with Adam Driver.

Jeanne holds a BA, cum laude, with a Theater Arts Minor, and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. She recently completed the Directing Creation Master Class at CPT; and Scene Study and Playwrighting Master Classes at The Cleveland Playhouse. After many years in the corporate, and non profit sectors, during which she lived in Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C., Jeanne makes her home in Cleveland, Ohio where she finds inspiration for her writing. Visit her at www.jeannemadison.com

Michael Oatman

Michael Oatman is the Playwright-In-Residence at Karamu Theater, the oldest African American theater in the country. He is only the second person to hold this honor in the storied history of Karamu; the first being Langston Hughes. In 2011, he won the CPAC Workforce Fellowship and the Cleveland Art Prize in 2010 for Best Emerging Artist and the 2010 Lantern Award for Best Play. In 2011, three of his full length plays where produced: Breaking the Chains, You Got Nerve and Sometime Hope Is Enough. In 2010, seven of his plays were produced in various venues: Black Nativity (Adaption), War paint, Eclipse: The War Between Pac and B.I.G., Course of Action, My Africa, A Solitary Voice, Not a Uterus in Sight, Hitler and Gandhi. He earned an English Degree from Cleveland State University in 2004 and completed his MFA in theater, from the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine arts Consortium (Cleveland State, Akron University, Youngstown University and Kent State) in 2008.

“For me the beauty of theater is that it lives. It is not an artifact. It wrestles with us and forces us to wrestle with it. Plays live in real time; actors can reach out and touch you. Good drama is not a spectators sport. It’s a subtle give and take, a delicate dance between actor and audience; playwright and the world. I have often mused that playwrights are the special forces of the creative writing world. They parachute in; give truth and watch as the walls tumble.”

Legacy Publishers Panel

Eryka Parker

Eryka Parker is a book coach, writing instructor, and developmental editor at Legacy Book Coaching & Consulting. Her “occupassion” is to diversify the publishing landscape by amplifying underrepresented voices. Her professional affiliations include serving as an Editorial Advisory Committee member for IBPA Independent magazine, the Board Treasurer of the Great Lakes Fiction Writers group, a contributor to Indie Author Magazine, and a book reviewer for AALBC. Eryka regularly speaks at events that highlight diverse perspectives and support initiatives centered on authentic storytelling to create a lasting legacy.

Eryka is also a multi-award-winning contemporary romance author using the pen name Zariah L. Banks. Her books focus on honoring #messymaincharacters in pursuit of personal growth, healing, and progression. Her novels tell the “gritty picture instead of the pretty picture” to showcase for readers that finding your forever love takes patience, acceptance, and a commitment to continual self-growth.

W. Paul Coates

W. Paul Coates is the founder of Black Classic Press and BCP Digital Printing. Black Classic Press, founded in 1978, specializes in republishing obscure and significant works by and about people of African descent. BCP Digital Printing was founded in 1995 as a parallel entity of the Press. The printing company uses state of the art digital technology to produce books and documents On Demand. The acquisition of digital printing technology distinguishes the Press from other small publishing companies and places Black Classic Press on the forefront of 21st century print and publishing technology. A former member of the Black Panther Party, he led the effort to establish the Black Panther Archives at Howard University.

Troy Johnson

Troy D. Johnson is the President of the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC). His primary platform, AALBC.com, is the oldest, largest, and most frequently visited website dedicated to books by people of African descent. Through AALBC.com, Johnson sells, reviews, discusses, and publishes books. AALBC.com is also a major platform for publishers to advertise and promote books. He is also a recognized thought leader in the “Black Book Ecosystem.”

Johnson has 20 years of corporate experience in roles ranging from designing wide area networks to managing international projects for major corporations, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. As an educator, he taught information systems and web design at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. Mr. Johnson holds a BS and MS degrees in engineering and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He has three daughters and lives in Tampa, FL.

Equity in Media

Amber Thompson

Amber (She, Her) is the founder of de-bias, an equity-focused monitoring and evaluation platform integrating systems of research, predictive analysis, and feedback to mitigate social impact.

She has designed a data-centric community hub, evaluate legislative policies, develop processes to distribute resources fairly, and dsigns equitable policies and procedures. Data for representation and utility understanding bias is the future of information systems and is the new standard.

Amber is a published activist and a public speaker on topics regarding equity and justice across all industries. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Sociology from Point Park University and a master’s degree in Organization Development and Change from Penn State University.

J. Rita McNeil Danish, Esq.

Rita McNeil Danish currently leads Signal Ohio as its CEO, a pivotal role in a nonprofit media organization dedicated to fostering civic and community engagement through community-centered journalism. Her leadership is instrumental in the establishment of newsrooms throughout the State of Ohio, aiming to fulfill the organization’s mission of providing quality, unbiased news and information to all Ohioans. This position marks her as a key figure serving as the inaugural CEO for the largest Black led nonprofit news organization in the country.

Prior to joining Signal Ohio, McNeil Danish brought with her an extensive background of over 30 years in the legal field, spanning various industries and business sectors. Her career included serving as a Magistrate and Judge in Columbus Ohio, Section Chief for the Ohio Attorney General’s Civil Rights Section and a Partner at Taft Law in both Chicago and Columbus Ohio. Her unwavering commitment to justice and equity was further demonstrated in her capacity as City Attorney for both Dayton and Cincinnati Ohio, where she was instrumental in implementing significant police reforms through a landmark memorandum of agreement with the Department of Justice.

Throughout her career, McNeil Danish has been recognized nationally for her leadership skills and her profound impact on community. She is equally adept at combining her legal acumen, budgetary leadership, and business management to deliver strategies and vision that transform businesses. This unique set of skills is why she is often sought after to contribute to boards including her previous 5-year term appointment on the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. She is currently the immediate past chair of the national Board for WELD (Women for Economic and Leadership Development) and serves on the board of the the National Civic League, while previously serving on the Boards of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and Women’s Small Business Accelerator. McNeil Danish was a Best Lawyers in America Honoree, Who’s Who in Cleveland Honoree and was a cover feature for Columbus Monthly.

Lila Mills

Lila Mills is the editor-in-chief of Signal Cleveland, the inaugural newsroom in the Signal Ohio network of locally-based, nonprofit, nonpartisan newsrooms. With a 25-year career in both journalism and community building, Lila understands Greater Clevelanders are active participants in creating the future we all want to see in this city we love.

At Signal Cleveland, she runs an 18-person newsroom with reporters covering economics, education, government, community and more. The newsroom also has a Cleveland Documenters program that trains and pays Greater Clevelanders to be part of the news gathering process by attending and taking notes at local government meetings. More than 900 Greater Clevelanders have signed up to be Cleveland Documenters. There is at least one Documenter in almost every ZIP code in the county.

Lila was raised on the city’s southeast side and has degrees from Columbia University. She lives in Beachwood with her two children, ages 11 and 19, and her husband.

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