Al Young is a poet-novelist-essayist from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, whose works of poetry include Something About the Blues, Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons (Poems 2001-2006), The Sound of Dreams Remembered (Poems 1990-2000), and Heaven: Collected Poems, 1956-90. He is the author of the novels Seduction by Light, Ask Me Now, Sitting Pretty, Who Is Angelina? and Snakes. His memoirs include Drowning in the Sea of Love, Kinds of Blue and Bodies and Soul, which won the American Book Award. With poet-novelist Ishmael Reed,  Young co-founded the legendary journals Yardbird Reader, Y’Bird and Quilt. He served as California’s poet laureate from 2005 through 2008 and lives in Berkeley.