Shonda Buchanan Presents: The Lost Songs of Nina Simone

“Shonda Buchanan crystalizes [Nina Simone] as a rare amalgam: piano prodigy, sudden soul singer, freedom fighter, half-loved-lover, complex mother and still more.”

— Remica Bingham-Risher, author of Soul Culture

"Simone’s childhood is portrayed against the backdrop of a nature-centric, magical realist narrative. The book culminates in a realistic and politically charged conclusion, all intertwinedin histories of Africa, Ireland, and North America.”

— Carolina Rivera Escamilla, author of In a Corner of Your Country

About the Author:

Award-winning poet and educator Shonda Buchanan (1968) was born in

Kalamazoo, Michigan, a daughter of Mixed Bloods, tri-racial and tri-ethnic

African American, American Indian and European-descendant families

who migrated from North Carolina and Virginia in the mid-1700 to 1800s

to Southwestern Michigan. Black Indian, her memoir, begins the saga of

these migration stories of Free People of Color communities exploring

identity, ethnicity, landscape and loss.

For the last 18 years, Shonda has taught Creative Writing, Composition

and Critical Theory at Loyola Marymount University, Hampton University

and William & Mary College. An Eloise Klein-Healy Scholarship recipient,

a Sundance Institute Writing Arts fellow, a Jentel Artist Residency fellow

and a PEN Center Emerging Voices fellow, Shonda has received grants

from the California Community Foundation, Arts Midwest/National

Endowment for the Arts Big Read Program and several grants from the

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

Her first book of poetry, Who's Afraid of Black Indians?, was nominated

for the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Library

of Virginia Book Awards. Literary Editor of Harriet Tubman Press, her

second collection of poetry, Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country

was published by San Francisco Bay Press. Shonda's poetry and essays

have been featured in numerous anthologies. Freelance writer for the LA

Weekly since 1991, and Indian Country Today, the Los Angeles Times and

the Writer's Chronicle, Shonda is completing a novel and a collection of

poetry about the iconic singer, concert pianist and Civil Rights activist,

Nina Simone. For more information visit Wayne State University Press.

Follow Shonda @shondabuchanan.

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