Fire!!
A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists
In 1926, seven legendary black creators set out to create a new publication. FIRE!! is one of the most important publications of the Harlem Renaissance. It marks a great collaboration between many of the artists who would go on to change the world of literature and art.
These seven creators organized and funded this important work.
- Wallace Thurman – Novelist & Editor
- Langston Hughes – Poet, Playwright, Novelist, Short Story Author, Etc…
- Gwendolyn Bennett – Artist, Writer & Journalist
- Richard Bruce Nugent – Writer and Painter
- Zora Neale Hurston – Writer & Anthropologist
- Aaron Douglas – Painter
- John Davis – Journalist
While Fire only existed for one issue, it is an important piece of literature fiction because so many of the persons involved went on to become key persons in the Harlem Renaissance. Their works are now considered classics.
- Artist Aaron Douglas designed the cover and other incidental art decorations
- Richard Bruce contributed drawings that were inserted between stories and poems
- Wallace Thurman contributed a short story, “Cordelia the Crude” and an editorial comment at the end titled “Fire Burns”
- Zora Neale Hurston contributed a short play, “Color Struck”, and the short story, “Sweat”.
- There is poetry by:
- Countee Cullen
- Edward Silvera
- Langston Hughes
- Helene Johnson
- Waring Cuney
- Arna Botemps
- Lewis Alexander
- Gwendolyn Bennett contributed a short story titled “Wedding Day, A Story”
- Richard Bruce's “Smoke, Lilies and Jade, A Novel, Part 1” is very interesting because of its unique use of punctuation.
- Arthur Huff Fauset contributed an essay “Intelligentsia”
