Odie Hawkins has been given the title, "The Underground Master", by a loyal constituency who have followed his career through his twenty four novels, short story collections, essays, television scripts, radio and film scripts.  He takes pride in being the originator of the Pan-African Occult genre, as exemplified by The Snake and Shackles Across Time.  He was one of the original members of the famed Watts Writers Workshop, established in the wake of the Watts Rebellion in 1965; and the Open Door Program, created by the Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. Hawkins' current projects and bibliography can be found online at www.odiehawkins.com.

Dee Dee McNeil is an Educator/Singer/Songwriter/Poet/Journalist/Producer and Playwright.  She has performed in over a dozen countries worldwide and, as a contract songwriter for Motown Records in her native Detroit, her music has been recorded by artists including Diana Ross & the Supremes, Gladys Knight & the Pips, David Ruffin, Edwin Star, The Four Tops, Nancy Wilson, Rita Marley, Kiki Dee, Jonah Jones, Side Effect, Rapper 'Styles' and LL Cool J.  McNeil is an alumnus of the Watts Writers Workshop and a member of the historic Rap group, The Watts Prophets.  She was one of the first women to Rap in the late '60s and early 70's, speaking up for women's rights.  Currently residing in Los Angeles, California, McNeil stays busy performing in local jazz venues.  In 2001, she won the BET Jazz Discovery Competition and appeared in concert on BET's internationally syndicated television program.  McNeil's articles and music reviews have appeared in Cadence Magazine, All About Jazz Newspaper, Pathfinders Travel Magazine and Writers' Journal, and she has a blog on www.lajazz.com.  Her published poetry has appeared in anthologies, including the groundbreaking A Rock Against The Wind, and her recently released her latest collection, Haiku In My Neighborhood.  For more information visit www.deedeemac.com.

Erin Aubry Kaplan (moderator) is a Los Angeles journalist and columnist who has written about African-American political, economic and cultural issues since 1992.  The first collection of her essays and articles, Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking The Color Line: Dispatches From A Black Journalist, was released October 2011.  She is currently a contributing editor to the op-ed section of the Los Angeles Times, and from 2005 to 2007 was a weekly op-ed columnist - the first black weekly op-ed columnist in the paper's history.   Kaplan has been a staff writer and columnist for the LA Weekly and New Times Los Angeles.  She is a regular contributor for many publications, including Salon.com, Essence, Black Enterprise, BlackAmericaWeb, Ms. and the Independent.  Kaplan is also a regular columnist for make/shift, a quarterly, cutting-edge feminist magazine that launched in 2007, and also writes online at www.erinaubrykaplan.net.