Joanne Kilgour Dowdy is a professor of adolescent/adult literacy at Kent State University in the Department of Teaching, Leadership, and Curriculum Studies. A graduate of the Juilliard School in the theater division, Dr. Dowdy continues to use her drama training to prepare teachers for the literacy classroom and as a performer who facilitates writing development through interactive workshops. Her major research interests include documenting the experiences of black women involved in education from adult basic literacy to higher education. She has written or edited twelve books. Her book Ph.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters was awarded the 2009 American Educational Research Association Narrative and Research Special Interest Group’s Outstanding Book Award. She lives in Ohio.

MacArthur Award winner Lisa Delpit is the retired Felton G. Clark Distinguished Professor of Education at Southern University. The author of the bestselling Other People’s Children and “Multiplication Is for White People,” co-editor (with Joanne Kilgour Dowdy) of The Skin That We Speak, co-editor (with Theresa Perry) of The Real Ebonics Debate, editor of Teaching When the World Is on Fire, and co-author (with Christopher Emdin) of The Sacred Art of Teaching (all published by The New Press), she lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.