Michelle Parkerson
Writer, filmmaker and educator Michelle Parkerson is from Washington, DC. Her creative career gained impetus in the late 1970s and early 80s, when she became a major contributor to a new Black gay and lesbian renaissance of artists, musicians, activists, writers and dramatists in the city – among them, her close friend, poet Essex Hemphill.
Michelle’s award-winning films include Gotta Make This Journey: Sweet Honey in the Rock, A Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (co-directed with Ada Gay Griffin) and Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box. Her documentaries have screened at several prestigious international festivals, including The Sundance Film Festival, The Berlin Film Festival and The American Film Institute. She has received numerous grants and awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a D.C. Mayor’s Art Award, consecutive grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and a Community Pioneer Award from the Rainbow History Project. In 2010, she completed her first feature screenplay, Loving Eunice, a coming-of-age story sparked by lesbian love during the Harlem Renaissance. She is currently developing “Lifted”, a 1920’s action-adventure feature film about the first African American woman pilot, Bessie Coleman.
Michelle Parkerson has served on the faculties of the University of Delaware, Northwestern University, Howard University and Temple University’s Dept. of Film and Media Arts. Ms. Parkerson is a Commissioner on the Advisory Board of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs. She is also a Board Member of Mary’s House For Older Adults, Inc., serving as Chair of the Film and Media Committee.
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