Samiya Bashir
Samiya Bashir is the editor of Best Black Women’s Erotica 2 (Cleis, 2002) and co-editor, with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana, of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art (Third World Press 2001). A Gathering of the Tribes called Role Call “an impressive collection of artistic expression by the young and gifted, illustrating clearly that activism is alive and flourishing in the Black creative community.” Clean Sheets said that Bashir “demonstrates a rare gift for compiling anthologies… she’s given new life to what often seems the tiring venue of the erotic ‘Best of’ book series.”
Where the Apple Falls, her first full-length collection of poetry, was released in June 2005 by RedBone Press. Bashir, already hailed “a gifted writer” by Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, has read and taught at readings and festivals internationally. A fellow of Cave Canem: African-American Poetry Workshop, former University of California Poet Laureate and a founding organizer of Fire & Ink: Writer’s Festival for LGBT Writers of African Descent, Bashir’s poetry has won awards nationwide including the Astraea Lesbian Poetry Award, an Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and awards from the National Association of Pen Women, North Carolina Writer’s Network and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Bashir served as Senior Editor of Black Issues Book Review, as well as editing magazines such as Ms. Magazine and Curve. She has written for numerous publications including Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Contemporary American Women Poets, Vibe and XXL. Her poetry, stories and essays have also appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 03, Obsidian III, Cave Canem #7, Warpland Journal, Kuumba #4, Seventeen; Africana.com, ColorLines, Lambda Book Report, the American Journal of Public Health and many others.
[Photo © 2006 by Duane Cramer.]
