Poet Sheila Black brings experience, energy to Gemini Ink
By Steve Bennett

In early December, Sheila Black gave a reading of her poetry at Gemini Ink, the Southtown literary organization she’d taken the reins of as executive director a few months earlier.

“She was decked out quite elegantly,” recalls Lee Robinson, a Gemini Ink board member and respected poet in her own right. “Lovely dress, pearls, flowing silk shawl — but when the shawl got in her way she just threw it off and kept reading. That’s the kind of grace you can’t fake.”

A couple of minutes after meeting Black, who is bright, effusive and passionate, you realize there’s nothing fake about her.

Over a recent two-hour interview, she seamlessly worked Jane Austen, V.S. Naipaul, Stendahl and Keats into the conversation, while worrying over her kids getting acclimated to schools in a new city, fretting about fundraising and talking openly about her lifelong struggle with X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH), a rare, genetic bone disease that stunts growth and still makes walking difficult for Black. She wore braces as a child and had a surgery at 13 in which her legs were broken and reset… Read more at mysanantonio.com