Laina Dawes is the author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal (Bazillion Points Books, 2012). A music and cultural critic and concert photographer, her writings and photography can be found in both print and online publications such as the Deciblog.com, The Wire, Noisecreep.com, Bitch magazine, NPR, the Toronto Star, Exclaim! Metal Underground.com, Hellbound.ca, CBC Radio, and Metal Edge magazine. She also runs the blog Writing is Fighting and is a contributing editor for Blogher.com’s Race & Ethnicity section. She currently resides in Toronto, Canada.