Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa Frazier

Ep. 54 DuEwa interviewed poet, E.J. Antonio. Visit E.J.'s website at E.J. Antonio (ejantoniobluez.net). Follow Nerdacity on Instagram @nerdacitypodcast Follow on X (formerly Twitter) @nerdacitypod1 Bio E.J. Antonio received fellowships in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Cave Canem Foundation. She’s appeared as a featured reader and performer at venues in the NY tri-state area, including Arts Westchester; the Stone; the Hobart Festival of Women Writers, The Vision Festival, Langston Hughes House, the Blue Door Art Gallery, the Untermyer Park Arts Center, and the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at the Pocantico Center. Her work has been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, including: the Encyclopedia Project, African Voices Literary Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, The Mom Egg, Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Taint Taint Taint Magazine, About Place Journal, and arriving at a shoreline an anthology . E.J. is the author of two chapbooks, Every Child Knows (Premier Poets Chapbook Series 2007) and Solstice (Red Glass Books, 2013), and a solo jazz poetry cd Rituals in the marrow: Recipe for a jam session. E.J. is a founding Board Member of the non-profit Arts organization One Breath Rising, and a founding member of the improvisation group, The Jazz & Poetry Choir Collective, which released its debut cd We Were Here in April 2020.

Ep. 53 DuEwa interviewed M. Nzadi Keita about her new poetry collection, Migration Letters (2024, Beacon Press). Visit M. Nzadi Keita: Poems and Prose (zeekeita.com). Listen to this ep and past Nerdacity eps at Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, Podcast Addict and more! Follow IG @nerdacitypodcast X twitter.com/nerdacitypod1 Subscribe YouTube.com/duewaworld BIO M. Nzadi Keita is a first-generation urban northerner. Her first book of poems, Birthmarks, was published by Nightshade Press. Her work has since appeared on public television, and in anthologies including Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry in the 21st Century, and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Her poems appear in MELUS, Poet Lore, and Crab Orchard, among other journals. Grants and fellowships from Yaddo, Fine Arts Work Center, Leeway Foundation, and the Pew Center for Arts and Humanities have supported her writing and community-based arts adventures.   Keita served as an adviser to the documentary, “BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez.” Her essays on Sanchez appear in Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in The 1960s and the anthology, Peace Is A Haiku Song (Mural Arts Press).    She has collaborated with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, WHYY-TV/ Philadelphia, the Rosenbach Museum, Moonstone Arts Center, Germantown Arts Roundtable, and other initiatives. Keita is a Cave Canem alum and a professor of creative writing and literature at Ursinus College.

Ep 52 DuEwa interviewed poet Steven Leyva about his book The Understudy's Handbook. IG @nerdacitypodcast Twitter @nerdacitypod1 YouTube.com/DuEwaworld Bio Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, is forthcoming from Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design.

Ep. 51 ⁠DuEwa⁠ interviewed author ⁠Courtney Thorsson⁠ about her new book, The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture (2024). Visit Courtney's website at ⁠www.CourtneyThorsson.com.⁠ Follow Nerdacity on IG @nerdacitypodcast and DuEwa IG @drduewawrites. www.duewaworld.com Tweet and follow on X @nerdacitypod1. Fan/follow Nerdacity on Facebook. Donate to Paypal.me/duewaworld  Bio ⁠Courtney Thorsson⁠ is an associate professor at the University of Oregon, where she teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature. Her first book ⁠Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels⁠ argues that Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, and Toni Morrison reclaim and revise cultural nationalism in their novels of the 1980s and 90s. Her writing has appeared in publications including Callaloo; African American Review; MELUS; Gastronomica; Contemporary Literature; Legacy; and Public Books. Her new book, ⁠The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture⁠ tells the story of how a remarkable community of Black women writers and intellectuals transformed political, literary, and academic cultures. She is the recipient of a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the research and writing of The Sisterhood.  

EP 50 DuEwa interviewed poet, Roberto Carlos Garcia about his latest book, What Can I Tell You? Selected Poems (Dec 2022). Visit www.robertocarlosgarcia.com. Visit www.duewafrazier.com. Instagram @nerdacitypodcast Twitter @nerdacitypod1 Facebook Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE>>Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, iHeartRadio & More! Watch DuEwa's recent podcast videos and interviews at YouTube.com/DUEWAWORLD Support https://PayPal.me/DuEwaWorld Thanks for listening! BIO Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia is a self-described “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists.” Garcia is rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, conveying “nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience,” and he writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. Roberto's third collection, [Elegies], is published by Flower Song Press and his second poetry collection, black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric, is available from Willow Books.  Roberto’s first collection, Melancolía, is available from Červená Barva Press. His poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, The BreakBeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3, The Root, Those People, Rigorous, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Gawker, Barrelhouse, The Acentos Review, Lunch Ticket, and many others.He is founder of the cooperative press Get Fresh Books Publishing, A NonProfit Corp.A native New Yorker, Roberto holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

EP 49 DuEwa interviewed Ellen Hagan. Ellen discussed her writing life and her books including her forthcoming book, All That Shines. Visit www.ellenhagan.com. Visit DuEwa's website at ⁠www.duewafrazier.com⁠. INSTAGRAM @nerdacitypodcast TWITTER @nerdacitypod1 FACEBOOK Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa Subscribe, Rate & Support Nerdacity with DuEwa at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.com/DuEwaWorld.com, iHeart Radio, Amazon or itunes Music, Podcast Addict, Radio FM, and more! ⁠PayPal.me/DuEwaWorld⁠ <<podcast donations BIO Ellen Hagan is a writer, performer, and educator. Her books include: Don’t Call Me a Hurricane, Blooming Fiascoes, Hemisphere,Crowned, Watch Us Rise (co-written with Renée Watson) and Reckless, Glorious, Girl. Her work can be found in ESPN Magazine, She Walks in Beauty, and Southern Sin. She received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in poetry in 2020 and has received grants from the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. www.ellenhagan.com 

CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! (This interview was recorded in April 2023) EP 48 DuEwa interviewed poet Derrick Weston Brown. Derrick discussed his books and writing life. Visit his website at www.DerrickWestonBrown.com. Visit DuEwa's author/artist/ consulting site at www.duewafrazier.com INSTAGRAM @nerdacitypodcast TWITTER @nerdacitypod1 FACEBOOK Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa Subscribe & Support Nerdacity with DuEwa at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon or itunes Music, Podcast Addict, Radio FM, and more! PayPal.me/DuEwaWorld <<podcast donations BIO Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. He is the founding Poet-In-Residence of Busboys and Poets. He is a graduate of the Cave Canem and VONA summer workshops and is a participating author in the PEN-Faulkner Foundation’s Writers-In-Schools-Program. His work has been published and featured in such print journals and online publications as, Racebaitr, Colorlines and Bayou Magazine.  His debut collection of poetry, Wisdom Teeth was released in 2011 through  PM Press. His second collection of poetry, a chapbook entitled On All Fronts , was released along with two other poetry chapbooks in a bound series from Upper Rubber Boot Press entitled Floodgates Vol.5 , March of 2019  He resides in PG County. He is an adjunct professor of English at Prince George’s Community College in Largo MD and a Creative Writing teacher at The Duke Ellington School of the Arts. You can follow him on social media on Facebook, Instagram @theoriginalDerrickWestonBrown or through DerrickWestonBrown.com

**CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH** EP 47 NERDACITY: DuEwa interviews poet Maya Marshall about her debut collection of poetry, All the Blood Involved in Love ( Haymarket Books, 2022) and her writing life. Visit Maya's website at MayaMarshallPoetry.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. DUEWA'S WEB + SOCIALS Twitter ⁠@duewafrazier1 ⁠Facebook DuEwa (page) Instagram @drduewawrites Author Site ⁠www.duewafrazier.com⁠ FOLLOW/FAN/FRIEND NERDACITY on IG @nerdacitypodcast and on TWITTER @nerdacitypod1. FACEBOOK PAGE Nerdacity Podcast WATCH VIDEO of NERDACITY @Youtube.com/DUEWAWORLD LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE @SpotifyPodcasts @ApplePodcasts @Anchor @Stitcher @iHeartRadio @RadioFM @AppleMUSIC SUPPORT future episodes by donating @ Support Nerdacity with DuEwa Frazier or PayPal.me/DUEWAWORLD GUEST BIO Maya Marshall is the author of the debut full-length poetry collection All the Blood Involved in Love (Haymarket Books, 2022) and the chapbook Secondhand (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). In 2018, she cofounded underbelly, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. Marshall taught at Emory University and Northwestern University. She holds fellowships from MacDowell, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center and elsewhere. Her writing has been published in Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She works as an editor for Haymarket Books, and she is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Adelphi University. Marshall was raised in Texas and Georiga, earned her MFA from the University of South Carolina, and made a home in Chicgao for nearly twenty years. Visit her website at mayamarshallpoetry.com)

Ep 46 DuEwa interviews poet Raina J. León about her writing life and new book, black god mother this body (Black Freighter Press. 2022). Visit www.rainaleón.com. FOLLOW/FAN/LIKE NERDACITY on IG @nerdacitypodcast on TWITTER @nerdacitypod1 on FACEBOOK @NerdacityPodcast page. SUBSCRIBE & LIKE on ALL podcast platforms (Apple, Anchor, Radio Public, iHeartRadio, Spotify) and YOUTUBE.COM/DuEwaWorld for videos of the podcast and vlogs. Support Anchor.fm/duewafrazier/support or Paypal.me/duewaworld or Cash app $duewaworld BIO Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is a mother, daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo. She is the author of Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks, , profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She publishes across forms in visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly work. She has received fellowships and residencies with the Obsidian Foundation, Community of Writers, Montana Artists Refuge, Macdowell, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale, among others. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She educates our present and future agitators/educators as a full professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California, only the third Black person (all Black women) and the first Afro-Latina to achieve that rank there. She is additionally a digital archivist, emerging visual artist, writing coach, and curriculum developer.

Season 3 EP 44 DuEwa interviews poet, Joel Dias Porter. Joel's new release is titled, Ideas of Improvisation (Thread Makes Blanket Press, 2022). Visit www.threadmakesblanket.com and follow Joel on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  Subscribe and Follow NERDACITY PODCAST @Spotify @ApplePodcasts @Anchor & more! FOLLOW Nerdacity on Instagram @nerdacitypodcast. TWEET Nerdacity on Twitter @nerdacitypod1. LIKE Nerdacity on Facebook.com/NerdacityPodcast. WATCH/LISTEN to YouTube.com/DuEwaWorld videos of Nerdacity. SUPPORT future episodes of Nerdacity by donating at PayPal.me/duewaworld or Cash app $duewaworld Thanks for listening! BIO Joel Dias Porter (aka DJ Reneg8d) originally from Pittsburgh, PA & currently resides in South Jersey. The 1998 & 1999 Haiku Slam Champion, he has poems in POETRY, Mead, Best American Poetry 2014, Callaloo, Antioch Review, Red Brick Review, & the anthologies, Short Fuse, Role Call, Def Poetry Jam, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, and Catch a Fire. A Cave Canem Fellow, he received the 1995 Furious Flower "Emerging Poet Award". His collection “Ideas of Improvisation” is just out from Thread Makes Blanket Press.

SEASON 3 EP 43 DuEwa talks with Remica Bingham-Risher about her new book Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions that Grew Me Up. Visit www.remicabinghamrisher.com and www.duewafrazier.com. Follow NERDACITY on Instagram @nerdacitypodcast  Tweet NERDACITY on Twitter @nerdacitypod1 Like / Fan NERDACITY on Facebook @Nerdacity Podcast with DuEwa SUPPORT future NERDACITY episodes @ PayPal.me/DUEWAWORLD or Cash app donation $duewaworld WATCH videos of NERDACITY and vlogs @ YouTube.com/DUEWAWORLD  Thanks for listening! BIO Remica Bingham-Risher, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, is an alumna of Old Dominion University and Bennington College. She is a Cave Canem fellow and Affrilachian Poet. Among other journals, her work has been published in the New York Times, the Writer’s Chronicle, New Letters, Callaloo and Essence. She is the author of Conversion (Lotus, 2006) winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan, 2013) shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Award and Starlight & Error (Diode, 2017) winner of the Diode Editions Book Award. her newest work, and first book of prose, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books and Questions that Grew Me Up, will be published by Beacon Press in 2022. She is currently the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives at Old Dominion University and resides in Norfolk, VA with her husband and children.

IG @nerdacitypodcast Hosted by DuEwa Frazier @drduewawrites www.duewafrazier.com June 2021 Summer of the Word featuring Amanda Johnston   BIO   Amanda Johnston was born in East St. Louis, IL, and raised in Austin, TX. She began writing poetry while living in Kentucky. Her writing has been published widely and she has presented at numerous literary conferences and events. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle, Pluck!, No, Dear and the anthologies, Small Batch, Full, di-ver-city, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. Honors include the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, a joint finalist for the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism from Split This Rock, and multiple Artist Enrichment grants from Kentucky Foundation for Women.  Amanda is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and has received fellowships from Cave Canem Foundation and the Austin Project at the University of Texas. Johnston is a Stonecoast MFA faculty member, a co-founder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder/executive director of Torch Literary Arts. Named one of Blavity’s "13 Black Poets You Should Know," Amanda’s work has been featured on Bill Moyers, the Poetry Society of America’s series In Their Own Words, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series. She was commissioned to curate a collection of poems for the Poetry Coalition on the theme Where My Dreaming and My Loving Life: Poetry & the Body. ➡️Subscribe and Like at http://www.YouTube.com/duewaworld  ❤️Support future episodes of the podcast by donating to https://PayPal.me/duewaworld or Cash app $duewaworld.   Twitter: @nerdacitypod1   

Ep. 42 DuEwa interviewed award-winning poet, children's writer, editor, professor, and Young People's Poet Laureate, Naomi Shihab Nye. Naomi discussed her new title, The Turtle of Michigan: A Novel (March 2022, Harper Collins).  Follow Naomi on Twitter @YPPLaureate or on Instagram.  FOLLOW on Instagram @NERDACITYPODCAST and Twitter @NerdacityPod1 and Facebook.com/Nerdacitypodcast LISTEN and subscribe @SPOTIFYPODCASTS @ANCHOR @APPLEPODCASTS @IHEARTRADIOPODCASTS and more! SUBSCRIBE Videos of Nerdacity at YOUTUBE.com/DUEWAWORLD SUPPORT anchor.fm/duewafrazier/support or send to PayPal.me/duewaworld BIO Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the author of more than 30 volumes. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and Nye spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She earned her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio. Nye is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for her work, including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Critics Circle, the Lavan Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Carity Randall Prize, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry award, the Robert Creeley Prize, and many Pushcart Prizes. She has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and she was a Witter Bynner Fellow. From 2010 to 2015 she served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018 she was awarded the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Texas Institute of Letters. Nye is the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate. Nye’s experience of both cultural difference and different cultures has influenced much of her work. Known for poetry that lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects, Nye has said that, for her, “the primary source of poetry has always been local life, random characters met on the streets, our own ancestry sifting down to us through small essential daily tasks.” In her work, according to Jane Tanner in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “Nye observes the business of living and the continuity among all the world’s inhabitants … She is international in scope and internal in focus.” Nye is also considered one of the leading female poets of the American Southwest. A contributor to Contemporary Poets wrote that she “brings attention to the female as a humorous, wry creature with brisk, hard intelligence and a sense of personal freedom unheard of” in the history of pioneer women. Nye continues to live and work in San Antonio, Texas. Her latest title is The Turtle of Michigan (March 2022).

Ep. 41 DuEwa interviewed Cynthia Manick - poet, curator, and editor of the new anthology THE FUTURE OF BLACK: Afrofuturism, Black Comics & Superhero Poetry. Visit Cynthia's website at www.cynthiamanick.com.  LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE to NERDACITY @Anchor @ApplePodcasts @SpotifyPodcasts and others. LIKE & FOLLOW on Facebook.com/NerdacityPodcast INSTAGRAM @NerdacityPodcast TWITTER @NerdacityPod1 SUPPORT future episodes by donating at PayPal.com/DUEWAWORLD or Cash app $duewaworld  Thanks for listening! BIO Cynthia Manick is the editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism and Black Comics Poetry (Blair Publishing, 2021), editor of Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation (Jamii Publishing, 2019) and author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among others.  Winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry and a performer at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and museums, Manick’s work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Callaloo, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She currently serves on the board of the International Women’s Writing Guild and the editorial board of Alice James Books. Cynthia is the founder/curator of Soul Sister Revue Poetry Reading Series.

Produced by DuEwa World - Consulting + Bookings http://www.duewaworld.com Ep. 40 DuEwa interviewed Nwasha Edu about her book, Akoma Day: Guidebook into the Sacred Science of SoulMating. www.akomahouseinitiative.com Listen + Subscribe @Spotify @Anchor @ApplePodcasts @iHeartRadioPodcasts @PodcastAddict SUBSCRIBE to podcast VIDEOS YouTube.com/DUEWAWORLD < SUPPORT at anchor.fm/duewafrazier/support or $duewaworld Cash app or PayPal.me/duewaworld Twitter @nerdacitypod1 Instagram @nerdacitypodcast  Facebook @nerdacitypod BIO Nwasha Edu coaches individuals, couples, families and professionals using real-life strategies that enhance any relationship through the power of ritual and cultural understanding.  Nwasha guides couples and singles through the Sacred Science of SoulMating and is the co-creator of a cultural alternative to Valentine’s Day, called Akoma Day, currently celebrated in 11 countries.  She believes "All Success is the Result of Successful Relationships" and uses her skills in strategic intervention to encourage the elevation of all relationships.  Her mission is to help transform any connection, from the most casual to the most intimate, into one of growth, contribution and love.  Visit www.akomahouseinitiative.com