Bio

Lita Hooper is a poet, playwright and educator.  Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Tempu Tumpu/walking Naked: African Women’s Poetic Self-portrait (2009), Crux: Conversations in Words and Images from South Africa to South USA (2008), The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2008), Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem First Decade (2006), Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (2005).  She is the author of two chapbooks, Legacy and Perspectives, and a critical biography, Art of Work: The Art and Work of Haki Madhubuti (2006).  Her work has also been published in online and print journals and magazines, including The Chattahoochee Review, poetrymidwest, Drumvoices Revue, Essence, The Drunken Boat, Reverie, and Pluck!

She is a co-editor of 44 on 44: Forty-Four African American Writers on the Election of the 44th President of the United States (2011).  Her collection of poems, Thunder in Her Voice: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, was recently published in 2010. 

In 2007 Ms. Hooper’s poem “Love Worn” was selected for the American Life in Poetry Series, which has a circulation of 1 million readers.  The recipient of the 2007 Emerging Artist Grant from the City of Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Ms. Hooper has been a featured reader at various colleges, including Morehouse College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Savannah State University.  She is the founding member of the Baobab Poetry Collective, which is supported by the Fulton County Arts Council’s Southwest Arts Center in Atlanta, GA.  She has attended numerous workshops, including the Fine Letterpress Workshop at the Center for Book Arts, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Cave Canem Poetry Workshop Retreat, and Squaw Valley Poetry Workshop.

Ms. Hooper earned a BA from DePaul University in Communications, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado, and a DA in English and Humanities from Clark Atlanta University.  She currently teaches online and lives in Atlanta, GA.