Novelist, poet, and playwright Lenard Moore was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina.  Moore earned his M.A. degree in English/African American Literature from North Carolina's A & T University, and his B.A. degree from Shaw University.  He is the first Southerner and first African American elected President of the Haiku Society of America (HSA).  Moore also serves as the haiku editor for Simply Haiku and founded the Carolina African American Writers' Collective (CAAWC).  Moore's poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in over 350 publications.  Moore recently won the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award for his contribution to the fine arts of North Carolina.  Currently, Moore is working on two poetry collections, a novel, short stories, a play, and literary criticism.  Moore is an Assistant Professor of English at Mount Olive College.  

Samm-Art Williams

Playwright, screenwriter, actor, and producer Samm-Art Williams was born in Burgaw, North Carolina.  He graduated from Morgan State University with a B.A. in Political Science/Psychology in 1968 and entered New York City theater as an actor in 1973.  In 1980, Williams' play Home earned a nomination for both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award.  In 1985, Williams received an Emmy Award Nomination in the category of Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program, for Motown Returns to the Apollo.  Williams has appeared in numerous television shows, including Frank's Place, a CBS "dramedy" for which he also served as story editor and received a 1988 Emmy Award Nomination in the category of Outstanding Comedy Series.  Williams is also a recipient of fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Novelist, short story writer, and essayist Allan Gurganus was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  He first trained as a painter, studying at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  He served three years with the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.  He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College.  His books include Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, White People, Plays Well With Others, and The Practical Heart.  Gurganus is the recipient of the Sue Kaufman Prize, a 2001 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Men's Fiction, and a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship.  In addition to later teaching at both Sarah Lawrence and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he also taught at Stanford and Duke Universities. 

Robert Inman

Robert Inman is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and essayist.  Inman has authored four novels, three of which received the "Outstanding Fiction Award" from the Alabama Library Association.  Inman has also written screenplays for six motion pictures for television, two of which have been "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentations.  Inman's script for The Summer of Ben Tyler, a Hallmark production, won the Writers' Guild of America Award as the best original television screenplay of 1997.  Inman's other Hallmark feature, Home Fires Burning, is a 1989 adaptation of his novel.  Inman's first stage play, the musical comedy "Crossroads," had its world premiere in June 2003, at Blowing Rock Stage Company, a professional theatre in Blowing Rock, NC, and is being produced by other theatres nationwide. 

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Award-winning poet and author, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, was born in Texas and grew up in North Carolina.  She studied photography, traditional arts, and writing in public community education programs at North Carolina State University.  She received a degree in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts before earning a MFA in Poetry at Vermont College.  Hedge Coke's work includes  Blood Run, Off-Season City Pipe, Dog Road Woman:  Poems, Ahani:  Indigenous American Poetry, They Wanted Children, Coming to Life, and Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer.  Hedge Coke was named the Writer of the Year in Poetry in 2005 by the Wordcraft Circle for her book Off-Season City Pipe and was presented the Mayor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2003 in Sioux Falls, and received the 1998 American Book Award for Dog Road Woman: Poems.  Hedge Coke holds The Distinguished Paul W. Reynolds and Clarice Kingston Reynolds Endowed Chair in English, and is an Associate Professor of Poetry & Creative Writing in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Kearney.