Francesca Royster is a professor of English literature at DePaul University, where she teaches classes on African American literature and culture, Shakespeare, and gender and queer theory. She is the author of Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions, Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era, and Becoming Cleopatra: the Shifting Image of an Icon.