Actor and producer Omar Epps was introduced to audiences as Q in Ernest Dickerson's film Juice, opposite Tupac Shakur. He has gone on to star in the beloved romance Love & Basketball, as Dr. Eric Foreman on House, and as Darnell on This Is Us. He is the author of the memoir From Fatherless to Fatherhood and both novels in the Nubia series.

Clarence A. Haynes has worked as an editor for a variety of publishers, including Penguin Random House, Amazon Publishing, and Legacy Lit, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. He has edited top-selling fiction titles like The Hundredth Queen, Scarlet Odyssey, and Washington Post bestseller The Vine Witch, along with its two sequels. He is also the author of the nonfiction work The Legacy of Jim Crow.