Howard L. Craft is an award-winning playwright, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and arts educator. His essays have appeared in The Paris Review and have been included in The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre. He is the author of several plays and the creator of the first African-American superhero radio serial, The Jade City Pharaoh. He is a recipient of the North Carolina Playwriting Fellowship and currently teaches as the Piller Professor of the Practice in the Writing for Stage and Screen program, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.