Performance poet, writer, percussionist and amateur photographer, Linda Joy Burke is a 2002 Distinguished Black Marylander Award recipient for Art from Towson University’s Office of Diversity, a 2004 Poetry for the People Baltimore Legacy Award recipient, and a 2007 Columbia Festival of the Arts Poetry Slam winner . She is currently a consulting editor to Little Patuxent Review Literary and Art anthology and a Maryland State Arts Council coordinator for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Competition. Burke’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications including: The Little Patuxent Review, Obsidian II Black Literature in Review, Beltway: An On-Line Quarterly, Passager, Healing Design; Practical Feng Shui For Gracious Living, Thy Mothers’ Glass Poems for Mothers and Daughters, Gargoyle 54, When Divas Laugh: The Diva Squad Poetry Collective.