Ismail Muhammad is a writer and critic based in Oakland, California. He’s the reviews editor for The Believer, a staff writer at the Millions, a contributing editor at ZYZZYVA, a board member at the National Books Critics Circle, and a Ph.D. candidate in the English department at U.C. Berkeley. In addition, he’s been a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellowship, a Simpson Family Literary Fellow, and a participant in workshops at VONA and Tin House. His work, which focuses on literature, art, identity, and black popular and visual culture, has appeared in publications like the New York Times, Slate, New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Real Life, and Catapult. He’s currently working on a novel about the Great Migration and queer archives of black history.