Pearl Cleage: Conversation with a Master @ National Black Arts Festival

ABOUT PEARL CLEAGE

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta based writer currently Playwright in Residence at The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta where her new play, "What I Learned in Paris," opened the 2012-2013 Season in September. Her works include award-winning plays, bestselling novels and numerous columns, articles and essays for a wide variety of publications including Essence, Ebony, Rap Pages, Vibe, The Atlanta Tribune, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Her first novel, What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, was an Oprah Book Club pick and spent nine weeks on the New York Timesbestseller list. She is the author of thirteen plays, including Flyin' West, the most produced new American play in the country in 1994. Her Blues for An Alabama Sky was included in the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival in Atlanta. Her other plays include Chain; Late Bus to Mecca; Bourbon at the Border; A Song for Coretta and The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Year. She is the author of eight novels, including Baby Brother's Blues, which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Literature. She is also the co-author with her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., of We Speak Your Names, a praise poem commissioned by Oprah Winfrey for her 2005 Legends Weekend. Cleage and Burnett are frequent collaborators, including their award-winning ten year performance series, "Live at Club Zebra!" featuring their work as writers and performance artists. Her new book of non-fiction entitled Things I Never Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons and Love Affairs, will be published by ATRIA Books in 2014.

Cleage was chosen Cosby Chair in the Fine Arts by her alma mater, Spelman College, in 2005 and spent two years as a member of the Spelman faculty. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by the college in 2010, Cleage remains active with the Women's Resource and Research Center and the Department of Theatre and Dance. She was the founding editor of CATALYST Magazine, an Atlanta-based literary magazine for ten years and served as Artistic Director of Just Us Theatre Company for five years. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company.