This anthology of poetry, spoken word, fiction, creative non-fiction, spoken word texts, as well as black and white artwork and photography, explores the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the 21st Century. Contributions engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race, by placing interraciality as the center, rather than periphery, of analysis. The anthology also serves as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, and what racial identity has come to mean today.

Adebe De Rango-Adem. is a recent MA graduate and writer whose words travel between Toronto and New York City. She recently completed a research writing fellowship at the Applied Research Center in New York, where she wrote for ColorLines, America's primary magazine on race politics. She has served as Assistant Editor for the arts and literary journal Existere, and was the 2007 York University poetry contest winner for her piece entitled "The Virtues of Love" as chosen by acclaimed writer and Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist nominee, Priscila Uppal. She is also a founding member of S.T.E.P. U.P.--a poetry collective dedicated to helping young writers develop their spoken word skills. Her poetry has been featured in sources such as Canadian Woman Studies Journal, The Claremont Review, Canadian Literature, and CV2. She won the Toronto Poetry Competition in 2005 to become Toronto's first Junior Poet Laureate, and is the author of a chapbook entitled Sea Change (2007). Her debut poetry collection, Ex Nihilo, will be published in early 2010.

Adebe De Rango-Adem's profile page

Andrea Thompson is one of the most well known poets in the Canadian spoken word scene and has performed her poetry at venues across North America and overseas for the past twenty years. Thompson’s debut poetry collection, Eating the Seed (2000), has been featured on the reading list at the University of Toronto, and at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and her spoken word CD One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award in 2005. One of the pioneers of the SLAM poetry scene in Canada, Thompson was awarded the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s Poet of Honour: For Outstanding Achievement in the Art of Spoken Word in 2009. Thompson is the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna, 2010), and is a recent graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA Creative Writing program. She currently teaches Spoken Word: Poetry and Performance through the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Continuing Studies Department. Over Our Heads is her first novel. Andrea lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Andrea Thompson's profile page