Profiles the lives and work of ten African American poets: Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki R. Madhubuti, Rita Dove, Eloise Greenfield, Langston Hughes, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Nikki Giovanni.
Describes the personal lives and professional accomplishments of ten American authors of the twentieth century including John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Ernest Hemingway.