Alice Randall

The only African American woman to ever write a number one country song, Alice Randall continually defies convention through her work—whether that entails re-writing the classic Gone with the Wind from a black perspective or re-thinking weight disparity in the African American community.

Her work includes the only known recorded country songs to explore the subject of lynching in The Ballad of Sally Ann; mention Aretha Franklin in the same line as Patsy Cline in XXX's and OOO's: An American Girl; and give tribute to both the slave dead and the Confederate dead in I'll Cry for Yours, Will You Cry for Mine? Randall has recorded more than 20 songs, including two Top 10 records and a Top 40, and has worked on adaptations of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Parting the Waters, and Brer Rabbit.

The author of The Wind Done Gone, an unauthorized parody of the American classic Gone with the Wind, Randall was awarded the Free Spirit Award in 2001 and the Literature Award of Excellence by the Memphis Black Writers Conference in 2002, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in 2002. Randall also wrote Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, which chronicles the tribulations of an African American professor of Russian literature whose pro football player son plans to marry a Russian lap dancer, and Rebel Yell, which explores racial irony through a young black couple struggling with their identity. Her latest, Ada's Rules, examines weight culture among African American women and has spawned provoking op-eds in The New York Times and Essence magazine.

Unafraid to tackle controversial subjects regarding race and the US' finicky historical relationship with it, Alice Randall is a provocative speaker whose presentations consistently illuminate and delight audiences.