Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys

Namina Forna is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Gilded Ones, the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy. She has an MFA in film and TV production from USC School of Cinematic Arts and a BA from Spelman College. Originally from Sierra Leone, West Africa, she moved to the US when she was nine and has been traveling back and forth ever since. She now works as a screenwriter in Los Angeles and loves building fantastical worlds and telling stories with fierce female leads. Visit her on twitter at @NaminaForna and on Instagram at @namina.forna.

Discover the gripping sequel to Namina Forna's New York Times bestselling YA fantasy, THE GILDED ONES. Set in an ancient West African-inspired world, this series is perfect for fans of CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE and BLACK PANTHER.

THE MERCILESS ONES is the second, thrilling instalment of the epic fantasy series in which a young heroine fights against a world that would dare tame her.

Ladee Hubbard is the author of The Rib King and The Talented Ribkins, which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Times Literary Supplement, Copper Nickel and Callaloo. Hubbard is a recipient of a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She has also received fellowships from MacDowell, Art Omi, the Sacatar Foundation, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Born in Massachusetts and raised in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida, Ladee Hubbard currently lives in New Orleans.

'Queen of Glory' is the story of Sarah Obeng, the brilliant child of Ghanaian immigrants, who is quitting her Ivy League PhD program to follow her married lover to Ohio. When her mother dies suddenly, she bequeaths her daughter a Christian bookstore in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx where Sarah was raised. A follow-up on the classic immigrant's tale, Queen of Glory provokes laughter and empathy, as its heroine is reborn through her inheritance.

Nana Mensah – Director / Writer / “Sarah Obeng” Nana Mensah is a Ghanaian-American writer, director, producer, and actress. Upcoming, Mensah will star in Queen of Glory, which she also wrote, produced, and directed. Queen of Glory will premiere in the U.S. Narrative Competition lineup at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 15, 2021 as a part of their Juneteenth programming. This film also marks Mensah's directorial feature debut.

On August 20, 2021, Mensah will appear in a series regular role opposite Sandra Oh and Bob Balaban in Netflix’s upcoming six-episode half hour comedy series The Chair.

This Fall, Mensah is attached to reprise her role in the Off-Broadway play Nollywood Dreams.

Most recently, Mensah was a staff writer on Season 2 of Random Acts of Flyness at HBO and is currently staff writing on Amazon's The Power.

She also co-wrote and co-starred in Season 2 of Netflix’s Bonding.

Previous film credits include: IFC's Farewell Amor (which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival), Like Father, The King of Staten Island, and the upcoming A24 film After Yang. Previous TV credits include: Madame Secretary, Evil, Little America, New Amsterdam and 13 Reasons Why.

Kevin McGruder is Associate Professor of History at Antioch College. His interest in community formation led to a career in community development, with positions that included Program Director at Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Director of Real Estate Development with the Abyssinian Development Corporation (Harlem), and Executive Director of Gay Men of African Descent (New York City).  Now as an academic, his research interests include African American institutions, urban history, and LGBTQ history. He has a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University, an M.B.A. in Real Estate Finance from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the Graduate Center of City University of New York.  He is the author of Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890-1920 and Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem.

JaimeSanders is the author of the award-winning blog The Migraine Diva. She is a participant with the Coalition for Headache and Migraine Patients, with whom she worked to create an Issue Brief on Disparities in Headache and is a part of the leadership of the Disparities in Headache Advisory Council (DiHAC).

Jaime is a stakeholder with the Headache and Migraine Policy Forum, works with the Society for Women’s Health Research Interdisciplinary Migraine Network, sits on the Patient Leadership Council with the National Headache Foundation, and serves on HealthyWomen’s Chronic Pain Advisory Council.

She has lived with migraine since the age of two and has been chronic and intractable for the last fifteen years. Through her advocacy work and blog, Jaime’s mission is to make a very invisible disease visible to the rest of the world and validate the real pain of millions.

The Migraine Diva – http://www.themigrainediva.com

Eric K. Washington is an independent historian and a Bundles Community Scholar of Columbia University. Hismost recent book is Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal (Liveright, 2019), the biography of aonce influential Black railway labor figure and his Harlem-based workforce. The book won the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History(New York Academy of History), the GANYC Apple Award(Guides Association of New York City) and special recognition as a finalist for the Brendan Gill Prize(Municipal Art Society of New York). Washington is a board member of the Biographers International Organization (BIO), for which he spearheads the Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship, an annual award for African American biography,.

A native of Durham, North Carolina, April Parker Jones first came to prominence through the role of Darcy on the cult sci-fi series Jericho (CBS 2006-2008). 

Born in Durham, North Carolina, Parker Jones attended North Carolina Central University. 

She received two Audelco Award nominations for her original portrayal in the role of Christina in the Off Broadway World Premiere of Plenty of Time, in which she costarred with her now husband, Joseph Jay Jones. 

She landed her first major TV appearance in 2006 on CSI: Miami.

April’s Theater training has paved her way to numerous and exciting recurring roles on CBS’s S.W.A.T., TNT’s The Last Ship, Fox’s The Resident, ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder, Lifetime’s Devious Maids, Freeform’s The Foster’s and the CW’s rebooted teen soap 90210. 

In 2016, Parker Jones returned to her roots to originate the role of ‘Genie Ann Parker’ in the stage production of Love Soul Deep written and directed by Patricia Cuffie-Jones, in which she was nominated for a NAACP Theatre Award.

April Parker Jones has most notably held the series regular role of ‘Natalie,’ a single mother and fast-food restaurant Manager on Tyler Perry’s television drama If Loving You Is Wrong on the OWN Network which made its series finale in 2020 after 5 seasons and the series regular role of ‘Colonel Lauren Haley’ on the CW series, Supergirl. 

Currently, she is set in the series regular role of ‘Lorraine Swift’ on the upcoming CW series, Tom Swift and also recurs on the Peacock series, Bel-Air.

Social Media Handles: Instagram/Twitter - @a_parkerjones Facebook - April Parker Jones

Bethany C. Morrow is a national bestselling author writing for adult and young adult audiences. She is the author of the novels Mem, A Song Below Water, A Chorus Rises, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix, and Cherish Farrah. She is the editor/contributor to the young adult anthology TAKE THE MIC, which won the 2020 ILA Social Justice in Literature award. Her work has been featured in The LA Times, Forbes, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more. She is included on USA TODAY's list of 100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read.

C. J. Washington is a data scientist and writer. He has a master’s degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and daughter. The Intangible is his first novel.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons (she/her) is an award-winning Black feminist lesbian cultural worker who has examined the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and sexual violence for over 25-years. A survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence committed to healing and non-carceral accountability, Aishah is the editor of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (A.K. Press), and the producer/director of the 2006- released, Ford Foundation-funded film, NO! The Rape Documentary. Aishah has received numerous awards and fellowships, including selection for the 2022 Changemakers Authors Cohort and a 2020 Soros Media Fellowship. She is a 20-year Buddhist student and practitioner, formerly in the S.N. Goenka tradition for 17-years and presently in the Insight tradition.