Laban Carrick Hill

Laban Carrick Hill's newest book America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60's recently won the 2007 Parenting Publications Gold Award. The New York Times Book Review wrote, "Excellent." Howard Zinn praised the cultural history as "a phenomenal piece of work, extensively researched and visually stimulating; an essential resource for children and adults of all ages." America Dreaming examines the legacy of the sixties, and how the events that took place then inform our lives today.

Hill is the author of more than 25 books, including the 2004 National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance, a book he researched for more than a decade. He was drawn to this era because the Harlem Renaissance seemed to embody Ralph Ellison’s sense that America could not be America without African Americans. Hill has also taught writing at Columbia University, Baruch College, and St. Michael’s College in Vermont. He is currently teaching at Pine Manor College Solstice MFA in Writing Program. In the fall of 2008, he was a visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana. He is also the co-founder of the Ghana Poetry Project, which was formed to promote a literary culture and to publish books of poetry in Ghana.

In fall 2010, Hill's poem Dave the Potter will be published as a picture book with illustrations by acclaimed artist Bryan Collier. Also in 2010, his picture biography of DJ Kool Herc, the founder of Hip Hop, will be published by Roaring Brook Press. His most recent novel is A Brush with Napoleon, published by Watson Guptil in 2007. His young adult novel, Casa Azul, based on the Frida Kahlo painting Self Portrait (with Monkey and Hummingbird) was selected as a New York Public Library 2006 Book for the Teen Age. His poems have been included in the Contemporary Poetry of New England anthology and in numerous literary magazines, including Tar River Review and Denver Quarterly. He was one of the founding editors of American Letters & Commentary. His Reader’s Companion to Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (SparkNotes) appeared in print in 2003. He has also written critical biographies for Scribners American Writers and British Writers series on J. M. Coetzee, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Jane Kenyon.

www.labanhill.com
www.ghanapoetryproject.com