VOICES FROM LEIMERT PARK REDUX is a symphony of diverse voices echoing the collective heartbeat of a community. In 2006, Voices From Leimert Park revealed one of the best kept secrets of the Los Angeles literary scene: African-American and other writers of color were producing nationally known and respected poetry, fiction, and nonfi ction within the Leimert Park literary community.
Fast-forward ten years, and although many of the older voices have moved on to literary and academic achievements, new voices have arisen beneath the sinew and tendon of soothsayers and wordsmiths whose legacy is traced back to the legendary Watts Writers Workshop.
Voices from Leimert Park Redux, again under the editorial direction of Shonda Buchanan, embraces these radical new voices, and then melds them with the well-seasoned tonality of Griots at home, on street corners, and in libraries. This new collection is as vibrant as the smell of patchouli on your skin and as honest as any James Baldwin quote, but certainly this one: “All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.”
Listen to the Voices from Leimert Park Redux and realize that you have just entered that safe place where truth is still being created with every honest breath.

CONTRIBUTING POETS

"These poets are memory catchers. Our moments are measured by their worthiness to memory. Poets work to capture the life force in our moments. Our stories, wisdom and enlightenment are embedded in our memories. The tears, the laughter, the things the heart sees and the mind feels are our teachers. Spend time with these voices, as their craft is to put music into each word and whose job is to know thyselves."
KAMAU DAÁOOD, Performance poet, educator & community arts activist

"Voices from Leimert Park Redux is a restoration and return to a tradition of traditions—or shall I say, additions. Like the sacred Los Angeles space itself that has honored the Griot and the Word—on page as well as stage—Shonda Buchanan creates Sankofa where the electricity of each poet returns herein having resurrected the spirits of all those poets who’ve come before them, doing their ancestors and the tradition proud."
TONY MEDINA, Poet and educator, author of Love to Langston

"In this moment, we need to listen to the voices brought together in this remarkable anthology. Though these poets do not turn away from the hard truths of injustice or poverty or abuse, they also urge us to celebrate beauty, resilience, and generosity. These are voices that “refuse to disappear.”
MARGARET MACKINNON, Poet and educator, author of The Invented Child

Shonda Buchanan is an award-winning author, professor, former magazine editor, and an Education Specialist for the U.S. Department of State. 

Former Interim Chair and Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at HAmpton University, Shonda Buchanan is the Fall 2017 Writer-in-Residence at William & Mary College.

She has taught poetry, fiction, narrative nonfiction, composition, magazine writing and edited, and research for the last 15 years. An award-winning poet and fiction author, her expertise includes Contemporary America, African American, and American Indian Literature, Comparative Literature, as well as Women's Literature and canonical texts.

Shonda is an Eloise Klein-Healy Scholarship recipient a Sundance Institute fellow, Jentel Residency fellow, and a PEN Center Emerging Voices fellow. She has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Community Foundation, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. 

As a culture and literary arts ambassador and lecturer, Shonda has conducted workshops and presentations for the U.S. Government Accountability Organizaiton, the U.S. Embassay Kuala Lumpur, the Athens Institute for Education and Research in Athens, Greece, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, the Hampton Roads Writers Conference, the Poetry Society of Virginia and many others.

Literary Editor of Harriet Tubman Press, Shonda edits books by and about African American people, culture, and heritage. Shonda has lectured, participated on panels, and has taught workshops at numerous colleges and universities; and has presented at U.S. public libraries, organizaitons, bookstores, high schools, middle schools, and conferences. 

Holding a B.A. and M.A. in English from Loyola Marymount University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Shonda's first collection of poetry, Who's Afraid of Black Indians?, explores the complexities of bi-raciality and the intersection between Blacks and Native Americans.