We are pleased to announce that Professor, poet and scholar, Tara Betts, will be writing the afterword to WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA due for release April 15, 2016. Betts holds a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New England College. A Cave Canem graduate, she had residencies from Ragdale Foundation, Centrum and Caldera, and an Illinois Arts Council Artist fellowship. Betts was a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and is currently a professor at University of Illinois.
Betts co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop for young women. She also conducted short-term workshops in schools, community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuse rehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union, Dodge Foundation’s Poets-In-The-Schools program, London’s Roundhouse, and the Binghamton Poetry Project. She also coached youth who participated in Brave New Voices and Chicago’s Louder Than a Bomb. She appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” and the Black Family Channel series “SPOKEN” with Jessica Care Moore, and has performed in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast, and through out the Midwest such as Arie Crown Theater, The New School, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, and appearances at festivals throughout the country.
Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including POETRY, Ninth Letter, Crab Orchard Review, Essence, Gathering Ground, Bum Rush the Page, Villanelles, both Spoken Word Revolution anthologies, The Break Beat Poets, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, and GHOST FISHING: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She serves as the poetry editor for Blackberry: a magazine and a contributing editor for Radius. She is the author of Arc & Hue (Willow Books, 2009) and the chapbook/libretto THE GREATEST!: An Homage to Muhammad Ali (2010). Her forthcoming poetry collection, Break the Habit (Trio House Press) will publish in 2016. www.tarabetts.net
