Alexs D. Pate's debut novel Losing Absalom received a Minnesota Book Award and was named Best First Novel by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Additional novels include the New York Times best-seller Amistad, Finding Makeba, The Multicultiboho Sideshow, and West of Rehoboth. Pate, born in Philadelphia, now teaches at the University of Minnesota. E. Ethelbert Miller, whose commentaries appear on NPR, is the former chair of the Humanities Council and a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. The author of nine books of poetry, editor of four anthologies, and advisory editor for African American Review and Callaloo, he has been the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University since 1974.