International Black Summit Interview Podcast: Alexis Pauline Gumbs

November 6, 2022
Black Summit Interviews
Season 1, Episode #8 - Alexis Pauline Gumbs


In this podcast episode, Glenn Greenidge and Grace Lawrence interview ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS about how she effectively uses the Summit Tools and Distinctions in her career, in her life, and in the Summit. 

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is cherished by a wide range of communities as an oracle and a vessel of love. Drawing over 25 years of experience as a writer and facilitator, her inclusive practice finds us and brings us into the ceremonies we have always needed. Alexis was blessed to learn the loving practice of facilitation as part of the facilitation team of the International Black Youth Summit from 1998-2004, and in many other settings.

Alexis's critically acclaimed books include: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (AK Press 2020), Dub: Finding Ceremony (Duke Press, 2020), M Archive: After the End of the World (Duke Press 2018), Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke Press, 2016) and Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016). 

Alexis was honored with a Whiting Award in non-fiction in 2022 and lauded for creating "modern fables that offer new methods of feeling." Alexis is also a 2022 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow.  In 2020-2021 Alexis was awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship to work on her forthcoming biography The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. 

Alexis has taught in many settings including as Winton Chair of the Humanities at University of Minnesota, Evans Chair at Evergreen State University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor in Africana Studies at Barnard College.

Alexis and her partner Sangodare have received many honors, including Advocate 40 under 40 features for the decade of work to create an intergenerational living library of Black LGBTQ brilliance called the Mobile Homecoming project.  Alexis lives in Durham, North Carolina where she nurtures and is nurtured by a visionary creative community while scheming towards her dream of being your favorite cousin. 

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IBS Annual Summit Event Registration – blacksummit.org/ase

The views and opinions expressed by the person interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the International Black Summit.