ANGELA JACKSON is a Chicago poet, playwright, and novelist. She was named Illinois Poet Laureate in 2020. She has received numerous honors for both fiction and poetry, including the Pushcart Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. Her poetry collection, All These Roads Be Luminous, was nominated for the National Book Award, and her debut novel, Where I Must Go, won the American Book Award. In addition to Comfort Stew, Jackson has written three other plays: Witness!, Shango Diaspora: An African-American Myth of Womanhood and Love, and Lightfoot: The Crystal Stair.