Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of nine poetry books, three textbooks, three children's books, editor of eight anthologies, and coauthor of a book of pedagogy. He is a Fellow with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, an adjunct professor for Oklahoma State University – Tulsa, and Curriculum Auditor for Tulsa Public Schools.  

 

He is a former faculty member of both the Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. Lansana served as Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University from 2002-2011, where he was also Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing until 2014.

 

Lansana is currently a Contributing Editor for Oklahoma Today magazine, and served as the Poetry Section Editor for Black Issues Book Review, as well as a Reading/Language Arts Editor for three of the largest educational publishing companies in the nation. He also worked as a Special Program Editor for Chicago Public Radio’s Every Other Hour series InVerse. Lansana was also an Assignment Desk Assistant for KWTV-9 in Oklahoma City and a News Director for KGOU Radio in Norman. Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (with Georgia A. Popoff) was published in March 2011 by Teachers & Writers Collaborative and was a 2012 NAACP Image Award nominee. His most recent books include the skin of dreams: new & collected poems, 1995-2018 (The Calliope Group, LLC); The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience & Change Agent, w/Georgia A. Popoff (Haymarket Books, 2017); Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writings of Gwendolyn Brooks w/Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Curbside Splendor, 2017); A Gift from Greensboro (Penny Candy Books, 2016); The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop w/Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall (Haymarket Books, 2015) and The Walmart Republic w/ Christopher Stewart (Mongrel Empire Press, 2014). 

 

Recently, Quraysh qcreated and is the Co-Executive Producer for Focus:  Black Oklahoma, a news and public affairs programs on various topics relevant to the African American community in Oklahoma.  Broadcast monthly on Public Radio Tulsa, KWGS 89.5FM.