Black Women Writers of Louisiana: Telling Their Stories

By Ann B. Dobie, Illustrations by Daren Tucker, Foreword by Phebe A. Hayes, PhD

Louisiana has been home, by birth or adoption, to numerous literary greats. But among that talent, there’s an under-celebrated cohort: Black women. Due to lack of education and opportunity, their record is fairly brief, but over the past century they have been responsible for a flowering of literature that portrays the Black experience through poetry, fiction, plays, essays and journalism. The writers profiled here have not gone wholly unrecognized though—far from it. Some have been honored with prestigious awards and have found a readership large enough to put them at the forefront of the national literary scene. Beginning with Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson—a fiery activist, columnist and storyteller in the late nineteenth century—the work extends to Fatima Shaik, named 2021 Louisiana Writer of the Year. Join Ann B. Dobie on this celebration of Louisiana literary talent.

Author : Ann B. Dobie is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette, where she directed graduate studies in rhetoric and the university’s writing-across-the-curriculum program. She has also directed a summer institute at the University of Vermont and worked with the Malta Writing Programme in Valetta, Malta. In 2002, she chaired the One Book, One City program “Lafayette Reads Ernest Gaines.” She is the author (or coauthor) of fourteen books, compiler and editor of three literary anthologies and the author of numerous articles on literature and composition. For thirteen years, she served as founder and director of the National Writing Project of Acadiana. She is currently serving as editor for the Literature Section of KnowLA, an online encyclopedia of Louisiana history and culture sponsored by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.