Bayo Ojikutu is the author of the critically-renowned novels 47th Street Black and Free Burning. His work has been recognized by the Washington Prize for Fiction, the Great American Book Award and Pushcart—along with various other bullet-points of renown, along the way. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, much of the essay/exercise made available here, he originally produced while earning his Master’s in English/Creative Writing at DePaul University. Ojikutu has taught creative writing, literature, film studies, the business of publishing, etc. at DePaul, the University of Chicago, Roosevelt University (and elsewhere) for more than fifteen years. Ojikutu and his family currently live in the Greater Chicagoland area.