ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kathryn Waddell Takara, PhD, has published her 8th book, Shadow Dancing, Selling Survival in China in 2017. She was honored in 2016 by the NAACP for a Lifetime Achievement Award in Education and African American history and culture in Hawaii. She is the publisher and owner of Pacific Raven Press and she was knighted into the Orthodox Order of St. John, Russian Grand Priory in 2014. She recently also published a scholarly article in an anthology edited by Ishmael Reed, Black Hollywood Unchained, and will appear in a forthcoming anthology, The Racial Frontier: African Americans in the West (Kama'ainas and African Americans in Hawaii) edited by Herbert Ruffin II and Dwayne Mack, Syracuse University. She performed at the Honolulu Museum and the E. Honolulu Rotary in January 2017, the Center for Chinese Studies, Basically Books in Hilo, the Temple of Peace on Maui. Her most recent performance was a poetry reading at the Arts at Mark’s Garage in downtown Honolulu. She also traveled to China, for the eighth time, to lecture and perform her poetry in May 2017. She was a 2010 winner of the American Book Award (Before Columbus Foundation). Dr. Takara is a performance poet whose travels in Africa, Europe, Central America, Tahiti, and China are often reflected in her work. She has previously published Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix (A Critical Biography)—Davis was a journalist, poet, and labor activist of the Chicago Renaissance, mentor of President Barack Obama, author, and Takara’s friend. She has also published Timmy Turtle Teaches, a colorful children’s travel book. Her other publications include four books of poetry: from Ishmael Reed Press New and Collected Poems, and from Pacific Raven Press Pacific Raven: Hawai`i Poems, Tourmalines: Beyond the Ebony Portal, Love’s Seasons: Generations Genetics Myths and Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics. She has published a collection of oral histories with African Americans in Hawai`i, as well as numerous poems and scholarly articles. Born and raised in Tuskegee, Alabama, a child of Jim Crow, Takara is a retired Associate Professor from the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, where she developed and taught courses in African American and African politics, history, literature, and culture for thirty-one years and organized national and local conferences on African American issues, culture, politics, and the Diaspora. She has also taught French. Takara earned her PhD in Political Science and an MA in French. She has appeared in a good number of television programs and documentary films, and has given frequent interviews to publications and the media. A writer, poet, and public scholar, Takara particularly enjoys her family and friends, pets, meditation, qigong and taiji, travel, books, gardening, raising orchids, and interior design. www.kathrynwaddelltakara.com www.pacificravenpress.co >     Kathryn Waddell Takara, born and raised in Tuskegee, Alabama, has recently retired as an Associate Professor from the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, Interdisciplinary Studies Program. She also taught in the Ethnic Studies Department, where she developed courses in African American and African politics, history, literature, and culture beginning in 1971. Her poetry has been published in a variety of publications including Interdisciplinary Studies Humanities Journal, Writing Macao (China), Kudzu, Honolulu Stories, Words Upon the Waters, The African Journal of New Poetry, Arkansas Review, Africa Literary Journal, Julie Mango Press, Poetry Motel, Peace & Policy, From Totems to Hip Hop, Bamboo Ridge, Rainbird, Konch, Kaimana, Hawai`i Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Ramrod, O`ahu Review, Pleiades, All She Wrote: Hawai`i Women’s Voices, and World of Poetry, an anthology, Her essays have appeared in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, Social Process In Hawai`i, The Black Scholar, The Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, and Multi-America: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, The Western Journal of Black Studies, The Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Magazine, I Ka Huliau, and Valley Voices. Recipient of the Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award and a two-time Fulbright Fellow, Takara holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and an M.A. in French and has taught, advised, and mentored innumerable students. She has read and performed her poetry and lectured extensively in universities, colleges, schools, and community and military events throughout the Hawaiian Islands, the Continental United States of America and in Beijing and Qingdao, China. Takara organized and coordinated several national and international conferences at the University of Hawai`i and in Honolulu. She has also appeared on a variety of television shows, in interviews and documentaries through the years. She enjoys her family, friends, pets, meditation, qi gong, garden, raising orchids and interior design. Dr. Takara is the daughter of pioneer black veterinarian, author, and world famous Buffalo Soldier, Dr. Wiliam H. Waddell, IV, VMD (1908-2007).          

Recipient of the Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award and a two-time Fulbright Fellow, Takara holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and an M.A. in French