Michael Simanga, Ph.D. (Publisher)

Michael Simanga is an activist writer, multi-disciplinary artist and educator and came of age during the Civil Rights/Black Power Movement as a student organizer and poet in his hometown of Detroit. He was active in the Congress of African People, the African Liberation Support Committee, the National Black Assembly, the anti-apartheid movement, the labor movement and the independent schools movement. As a cultural worker he has focused on building and supporting community based cultural institutions and has spent his adult life as an advocate of art and culture as an instrument of social change and development. He is the former Executive Director of the National Black Arts Festival; former director of Fulton County Arts and Culture and the Southwest Arts Center. Dr. Simanga is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies at Georgia State University and as a scholar continues to study African American and African Diaspora history and culture to inform his work. He writes and lectures on African American and African Diaspora art, culture, politics and history, human rights and justice. He earned an undergraduate degree in History from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta and a Ph.D. in African American Studies from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati.

The Publisher of Third World Press (along with the Executive team) has specific responsibilities that include the following:

• maintaining and promoting the legacy of TWP and extending and expanding that legacy;
• participating in the overall decision making of the leadership team in strategic planning and implementation, fundraising, and other areas of development include policies, financial health of the organization and identifying and cultivating strategic partnerships and other business functions;
• developing and maintaining relationships with our existing authors, cultivating relationships and signing new authors;
• working with authors to complete manuscripts for publication;
• leading, managing, and advising the creative team to on production schedule/deadlines and finished products;
• working with distribution and marketing to increase sales of TWP product;
• working with leadership team and creative team(s) to generate financial support from grants, donations and other sources of income;
• developing with other TWP leadership and staff other creative outlets for TWP content.