Meet the FLOW Authors
L. D. Barnes is a life long Chicagoan, proud of her beginnings on the West Side. She attended Roosevelt University and the Art Institute of Chicago before spending her work life at several cultural, medical, political, broadcasting and corporate institutions. She joined the Beverly Art's Center Writers Group, where she edited and contributed to their literary magazine, the BAC Street Journal.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku is the author of novels, The River Where Blood is Born and Hot Johnny (and the Women Whom Loved Him). Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry and dramatic works are widely published and produced, appearing in such outlets as Both Sides: Stories from the Border, the Anthology of Appalachian Heritage, storySouth, Another Chicago Magazine, New Daughters of Africa, Ms. Magazine, Ocotillo Review, Obsidian, the Literary Traveler and others. She coedited the anthology Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks.
Tina Jenkins Bell is a published fiction writer, academic, literary activist, and FLOW’s president and founder. Bell’s short story, To the Moon and Back was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. Her collaborative hybrid, entitled Looking for the Good Boy, Yummy, was published in 2018. Bell also facilitates workshops on the craft of writing and the business of publishing fiction.
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts is an award-winning poet, educator, and author of Mahogany: A Love Letter To Black. Her work focuses on the intersectionality between form and freedom and unlocks the opportunity for invisible voices to be heard. She is dedicated to inspire and transform lives through creativity. Byrd’s work appears in CAGIBI’s journal and Sixfold, and is the 2019 St. Louis Fringe National Artist of the Year. Her favorite words are balloon and bubble.
April Gary - poet, spoken word artist, actor, playwright, screenwriter, film maker, public speaker, producer and artist. Author of 4 poetry chapbooks: Love and Butterflies, The Dialect of Amazons, Tapestry – A Modern Tale of Ancient Times, and Thorns on Roses. Corporate career includes I.T. business systems analysis, web page development, technical writing, Scrum Master & Project Management.
Instagram: aprilgary9
FaceBook: aprilgary9
Email: aprilgary9@gmail.com
Janice Tuck Lively is a fiction writer and holds a PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in the anthology The Thing About Love Is..., Hair Trigger, Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora, Valley Voices: A Literary Review, among other publications. She lives in Chicago and teaches creative writing and literature at Elmhurst College. She is currently working on her first novel A Dress for Dorothy Dandridge.
A Tribute to Pauline Lampkin
Undefined By Others
I'm a witch in the kitchen and a bitch in the bed,
Undefined by others,
Yet refined by the extremities of my soul,
Only to be ruled by my endless spirit and the brain in my head.
I am whomever I determine me to be,
Undefined by others.
Paulin Lampkin was a wife, mother, and former Chicago Public Schools science teacher who taught at Gwendolyn Brooks High School, was a creative nonfiction and fiction writer as well as a poet. She was a fan of "Zane-like" chic lit. Her prose had chronicled romance between sheets, heart-filled family dramas, and poignantly-bold poetry. Through her stories and rhymes, she was unafraid to say what we think but would never say, and that's why readers and listeners alike are captivated from her first, to her last words.