Obsidian Is in Its 25th Anniversary Year

Founded in 1975 by Alvin Aubert at SUNY-Purchase,
Obsidian, the academic journal of black creative writing,
is now in its 25th anniversary year.

Each Editor changes the numbering of the journal.
The new editor is Afaa M. Weaver (b.Michael S. Weaver),
the poet and playwright. As the third Editor, after
Alvin Aubert and Jerry Barax, Obsidian is now:
Obsidian III/Literature in the African Diaspora. The
journal is based in Raleigh, North Carolina at
NC State University.

HIGHLIGHTS OF CURRENT ISSUE

Volume 1 Number 2 (Fall/Winter 2000)
features the works of the poets Sam Cornish
and Jerry Barrax, both of whom were born
in the thirties. Taking the interest each of them
has in the Western as film, the issue is entitled
"Poets as Outlaws/Cowboys" and features
Jerry Barrax in cowboy attire and Sam Cornish
as more the Bat Materson type of urban
frontiersman. Cornish and Barrax are significant
poets who have aesthetic realities that connect to
their contemporaries, Baraka, Sanchez,
and Harper, but who maintain singularity
apart from distinctions in poetic voice.

The issue also features an excerpt of a
memoir by the Sicilian-American writer Tony
Valerio concerning his intimate friendship
with Toni Cade Bambara in her last years.

SPECIAL UPCOMING ISSUE
This fall Obsidian III will be guest edited
by Kwame Dawes in an issue to be entitled
"Catch Afire:Thirty Years of Jamaican Writing,"
featuring Kamau Brathwaite, Linton Kwesi
Johnson, and many others.

We welcome your support. Buy single
issues of Obsidian ($10) and/or subscribe
($22 year-individuals). Send email inquiries,
including submission questions to:
        obsidian_at_social.chass.ncsu.edu

We welcome your support as potential
contributors or reading audience.

Thank you!
Afaa M. Weaver, Editor
Obsidian III/Literature in the African Diaspora
NC State University
Dept. of English/Box 8105
Raleigh, NC 27695
919 515-4153

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Received on Mon Feb 28 2000 - 13:54:00 EST