Joanne Gabbin

Joanne Gabbin was educated at Morgan State University and the University of Chicago. In 1994 Gabbin organized and directed the historic conference, “Furious Flower: A Revolution in African American Poetry,” which she called the “largest gathering of poets, critics, and scholars in more than two decades” dedicated to celebrating the African American poetic tradition. In 2004, Gabbin organized the second Furious Flower poetry conference. She is editor of Furious Flower: African American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present (2004) and The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry (1999), and executive producer of the Furious Flower video and DVD series. She is also author of a biography, Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition (1994), and a children’s book, I Bet She Called Me Sugarplum (2004). Gabbin’s articles have appeared in Callaloo, African American Review, The Zora Neale Hurston Forum, The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing, the Langston Hughes Journal, The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, and others. In October 2005, Gabbin was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. She is founder and organizer of the Wintergreen Women Writers’ Collective, and owner of the 150 Franklin Street Gallery in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is currently a professor of English at James Madison University where she is also director of the Honors Program and executive director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center.