by Ernest Hardy

Writing from a critical center that is melanin-based/ feminist/ pro-queer/ unabashedly-leftist, LA-based writer Ernest Hardy (a Sundance Fellow and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vibe, the LA Times, the LA Weekly and more) pens essays, interviews and reviews whose subject matter ranges from underground hip-hop and American indie film to modern French cinema, from revealing interviews with Warren Beatty, Meshell NdegeOcello and Les Nubians to an essay on gay rappers and queer rap audiences that pushes beyond the clichés of the media-stoked “down-low” phenomenon. Blood Beats: Vol. 1: demos, remixes & extended versions was a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Arts & Culture, and earned a 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ernest Hardy is a Sundance Fellow whose music and film criticism have appeared in The New York Times, the Village Voice, Vibe, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, Flaunt and the LA Weekly. He’s a contributor to the reference books 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die; Classic Material: the Hip-Hop Album Guide; and Books: the Ultimate Insider’s Guide. His collection of criticism, Blood Beats Vol. 1: Demos, Remixes and Extended Versions, was published in 2006 and earned a 2007 PEN / Beyond Margins Award. Blood Beats Vol. 2: The Bootleg Joints, was published in February 2008. Hardy has been a juror for the Sundance Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, Los Angeles Outfest, and the Los Angeles Film Festival, and co-programmed the FUSION Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Hardy has written liner notes for Chuck D Presents: Louder than a Bomb; Curtis Mayfield: Gospel; Chet Baker: Career 1952-1988; and the box-sets Love, Luther; Say It Loud: A Celebration of Black Music in America; and Superstars of Seventies Soul, among others. He co-edited the literary anthology War Diaries (APLA, 2011). His short story, “Cold & Wet Tired You Bet” appears in Best Gay Stories 2011 (Lethe Press), and two of his poems appear in the anthology Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call (Vintage Entity Press, 2015).

[Photo © 2006 by Alex Demyanenko.]

218 pp.

© 2006 by Ernest Hardy
Cover photo copyright © 2006 by Alex Demyanenko
Cover design: E.M. Corbin

ISBN-10: 0-9656659-8-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-9656659-8-8

Recently viewed