Africana Wisdom: Poems from My Tea Garden

Stephanie Y. Evans

Sep 2025 · Balboa Press

About this ebook

Africana Wisdom traces a professor’s writing through three decades of a learning journey. Evans explores five evergreen lessons gleaned from reading, writing, and teaching. Memories traverse the author’s adventures from the Vegas desert and Florida swampland to the Massachusetts valley and Atlanta’s rolling hills.

About the author

Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans has taught Black Women’s Studies for two decades. She writes about Black women’s intellectual history, mental health, and wellness. Her publications explore topics including higher education history, yoga, and tea. Professor Evans has published books with State University Press of New York, University Press of Florida, and Wayne State University Press. She has co-edited three community-based collections. Africana Wisdom: Poems from My Tea Garden is her second book of poetry. Stephanie Evans was born in Washington, DC (at Howard University’s Freedman’s Hospital), but grew up as a military child in New Mexico, California, Germany, Illinois, and Arizona. She has traveled extensively as a researcher, presenting her work in Rio de Janeiro, Dar es Salaam, Paris, Cambridge, London, and at universities across the United States. Dr. Evans began college as a first generation, adult re-entry student in 1994 and earned her BA in Comparative Humanities from California State University, Long Beach in 1999. She graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. She received a graduate certificate in Feminist Studies and earned her PhD in African American Studies from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2003. As faculty at University of Florida, Clark Atlanta University and Georgia State University, she served as a department chair for twelve consecutive years. Recognition for her research has included the Colonel Allan and Margaret Crow Term Professor award (University of Florida), the Delores Aldridge-Eldridge McMillan Award for Excellence in Research (Clark Atlanta University), and Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey Distinguished Lecturer in Africana Studies (University of North Carolina-Charlotte). Dr. Evans holds a certification in Kemetic Yoga and has participated in both Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Cognitive-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) meditation retreats. She has been happily married to Dr. Curtis D. Byrd, for over fifteen years. Her full profile is available online at https://professorevans.net/.