Judy Juanita

Judy's collection of essays, De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland (EquiDistance Press, 2016), examines the intersectionality of race, gender, politics, economics, and spirituality as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." De Facto Feminism was selected as Book-of-the-Month for December 2016 by the African Americans on the Move Book Club (AAMBC), and was a Kirkus Reviews Book-of-the-Month for March 2017, which gave it a starred review. The collection was a distinguished finalist in Ohio State University's 2016 Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Judy’s work is archived at Duke University's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. Her short stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in Obsidian II, 13th Moon, Painted Bride Quarterly, Croton Review, The Passaic Review, Lips, New Verse News, Poetry Monthly, and Drumrevue 2000. Her poetry collection, Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland (EquiDistance Press, 2016), came out November 2020.

In theater, Judy's themes are social issues overlaid with absurdity, humor, and pathos (in one play, a distraught nurse whose teenage son has overdosed falls head over heels in love with a duck). Her seventeenth play, “Theodicy," about two black men who accidentally fall into the river of death, won first runner-up of 186 plays in the Eileen Heckart 2008 Senior Drama Competition at Ohio State University.

Judy’s work is archived at Duke University's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African African-American Literature.