Emma Rodgers
Emma Rodgers is the former co-owner of Black Images Book Bazaar, the curator of the Dallas Civil Rights Museum, and the chair of the board for Bishop Arts Theatre Center. She is a co-founder of the Romance Slam Jam literary conference and the namesake of its Emma Award, established to promote diversity in literature by recognizing authors of romance and women's fiction. Emma was the first bookseller selected to be part of the U.S. Information Agency Corridors of Culture team, a delegation of American writers, editors, and literary agents that traveled to Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia to share insights and practical information about the craft and role of a writer in a free society, and how the U.S. literary community shares many of the same challenges and aspirations as those in other countries. She has won numerous community service awards and she was recently featured in a Black History Month segment on NBC-5 in Dallas.