Alexis De Veaux papers

Masani Alexis De Veaux (1948- ) is an American writer and illustrator, and former chair of the department of Women’s Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Born on September 24, 1948, in Harlem, De Veaux received a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York Empire State College. She continued her education in creative writing at the University at Buffalo, where she obtained a master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees. A voice for Black feminism and LGBTQ+ equality, De Veaux’s writings often reflect the racial and sexual experiences of Black female characters. Her work has won many literary awards and encompasses a range of social articles, poetry, fiction, and memoir.

Throughout her career, she has been part of the Black feminist movement and the Third World Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement. Her work has been heavily influenced by these movements. Early in the 1970s, De Veaux became a member of the writer’s workshop of the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Harlem. Under the guidance of the workshop’s leader, the late writer Fred Hudson, De Veaux won first place in a national Black fiction writers contest (1972). Working in multiple genres, De Veaux has been the recipient of a number of literary awards including the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Biography and for Lesbian Fiction, and the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award, Nonfiction.

De Veaux has traveled extensively for her work as an artist and lecturer. She was a freelance writer and contributing editor for Essence magazine (1979-1991), for which she traveled throughout Africa. Essence chose her to travel to South Africa in 1990 to interview Nelson Mandela after his release from prison and was the first North American to interview him.

Coupled with the literary scene, De Veaux performed, read speeches and poems, made appearances at activist engagements and events, and was involved with arts centers. She attended conferences, fellowships, workshops, and retreats for artists and writers.

De Veaux’s published work includes books Na-Ni (1973), Spirits in the Street (1973), Don’t Explain: A Song of Billie Holiday (1980), Blue Heat: Poems and Drawings (1985), An Enchanted Hair Tale (1987), The Woolu Hat (1995), Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde (2004), and Yabo (2014); and short stories “Remember Him An Outlaw” (1972), “The Riddles of Egypt Brown-stone” (1980), “All Shut Eyes Ain’t Closed, All Goodbyes Ain’t Gone” (1983), “Adventures of the Dread Sisters” (1991), and “The Ethical Vegetarian” (1995). In addition, De Veaux has published dozens of articles and essays on various subjects, including “Jayne Cortez, Revolutionary Mouth on Paper” (Essence, 1978) and “Sister Love” (Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing, 1995). One of her plays, The Tapestry (1986), is included in the

anthology Nine Plays by Black Women Playwrights. Others have been produced off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country, and one play, Circles (1972), was produced at KCET-TV, California (1976).