Authors' Birthdays: December

Authors of The Man Who Cried I Am, how i got ovah, Cane, and Juba to Jive were born this month.

December 5: John A. Williams is the author of many novels including The Angry Ones, Sissie, The Man Who Cried I Am, Captain Blackman, Clifford’s Blues, and Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light. Williams won the American Book Award in 1998 for Safari West.

December 6: William Stanley Braithwaite (1878-1962) was a poet, editor, anthologist and literary critic. Lyrics of Life, House of Falling Leaves, and Selected Poems are his poetry collections. He was awarded the N.A.A.C.P.’s Springarn Medal for his outstanding achievement.

December 14: Carolyn Rodgers is a poet who came to prominence in the 1960s in Chicago’s Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC). Her poetry collections include how i got ovah, songs of a black bird. and the heart as ever green. In 2006 she wrote the foreword to Richard R. Guzman’s anthology, Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?

December 26: Jean Toomer (born Nathan Pinchback Toomer) (1894-1967) was the author of the Harlem Renaissance classic fiction, Cane, and The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer. He also wrote a collection short sayings, Essentials: Definitions and Aphorisms.

December 31: Clarence Major is a prolific postmodern novelist, poet, anthologist, essayist, short story writer, and artist. His novels include Emergency Exit, Reflex and Bone Structure, Such Was the Season, Dirty Bird Blues, My Amputations and many others. His poetry collections include Swallow the Lake, The Cotton Club, Configurations (a National Book Award finalist in 1999) and Waiting for Sweet Betty. He also wrote Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang.