Writer

Alexis De Veaux has written in multiple genres–poetry, fiction, memoir, journalism, biography, children's literature and plays. Writing is a way she reimagines the inequities of race, gender, sexuality and class in black diasporic lives.

Speaker

As a speaker Alexis De Veaux addresses social issues and connects them across historic and contemporary moments. Whether speaking in a community setting or on a college or university campus, she continually interacts with new voices and new possibilities.

Activist

Alexis De Veaux is committed to participating in imagining a more just, socially conscious, sustainable and literate world. She speaks of a literate world, a global world, in which textual and nontextual ways of learning and knowing are equally valued.

Making black female characters central, and disrupting boundaries between forms

A Celebrated Author

Alexis De Veaux is the author of two award-winning biographies: Don’t Explain: A Song of Billie Holiday and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde. A celebrated writer of poetry, children’s literature, plays, essays and journalism, De Veaux is also an activist recognized for her lifelong contributions to a number of women’s and literary organizations. With her new work, Yabo, De Veaux has returned to her first love: writing fiction.

Jewelle Gomez

Author, The Gilda Stories

“Alexis De Veaux laces together the past and the present with poetic elegance in an intricate and delicate pattern of call and response. Echoing the work of Jean Toomer and Toni Morrison, Yabo speaks in a powerful and insistent cadence about things we may have forgotten: death, desire, magic and the drum beat of resilience.”

 Alexis De Veaux has collaborated with the visual artist Valerie Maynard and poet Kathy Engel on the digital project, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been Terrorized?” (available on YouTube); and co-founded with Kathy Engel, Lyrical Democracies (lyricaldemocracies.com), a cultural partnership aimed at communities interested in working with poets to enhance existing social projects.