Ishmael Reed is an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, songwriter, public media commentator, lecturer and publisher. His play on the Broadway musical Hamilton, The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, garnered three 2019 AUDELCO awards and was published by Archway Editions in October 2020. The Terrible Fours, the third novel in the Terribles trilogy, was published in June 2021. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he is a MacArthur Fellow and holds the 2020 Berkeley Distinguished Emeritus Award.

Carla Blank is a writer, director, dramaturge and editor. She co-authored Storming the Old Boys? Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America, with Tania Martin. She is author and editor of the 20th century historical reference Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900-2000. Her two-volume anthology of performing arts techniques and styles, Live on Stage! , was co-authored with Jody Roberts. She co-edited with Ishmael Reed the anthology Powwow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction, From Then to Now. She lives in Oakland, California.

“Insightful essays and interviews examine how white power structures on Broadway have shaped musical theater's representations of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, or led to their absence ... A book for all readers interested in the history of Broadway musicals, theater criticism, and the role of whiteness in Broadway's misrepresentations. ” Amy Lewontin Library Journal

“For half a century, Ishmael Reed?s been American literature?s most fearless satirist, waging a cultural forever war against the media that spans a dozen novels, nine plays and essay collections, and hundreds of poems” The New Yorker

On Powwow: Charting the Fault Lines of the American Experience?Short Fiction from Then to Now“AReed and Blank have selected molten and magical tales that dramatically explore the consequences of our attitudes toward race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality?. this is a live-wire, from-sea-to-shining-sea collection in which we hear America singing.” Donna Seaman Booklist

“Highly recommended” Gene Shaw, Library Journal“A captivating, multifarious look at the American experience through its short fiction.” Publishers Weekly

On Rediscovering America: the Making of Multicultural America, 1900-2000 written and edited by Carla Blank