Toni Cade Bambara is a well known and respected activist, professor of English and African American studies, editor of anthologies of Black literature, and author of short stories and a novel. "All writers, musicians, artists, choreographers/dancers, etc., work with the stuff of their experiences. It's the translation of it, the conversion of it, the shaping of it that makes for the drama. I've never been convinced that experience is linear, circular, or even random. It just is. I try to put it in some kind of order to extract meaning from it, to bring meaning to it."¹

Born March 25, 1939 in New York City, Bambara grew up in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queens, as well as Jersey City, New Jersey. Educated in both public and private schools, Bambara credits her mother for much of her success. "She did the New York Times and the London Times crossword puzzles. She...