Biographical Sketch of W. E. Dancer in The Florida Negro Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Florida Transcription, encoding and edition Lucia Mylius Edition Laura Heffernan Edition Tru Leverette Edition Clayton McCarl

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https://violamuse.unfdhi.org/items/show/103 USA Florida Jacksonville Biographical sketch of author W.E. Dancer found on p. 151 of the manuscript copy of The Florida Negro housed in the State Archives of Florida (S1585) and available through the Florida Memory website of the State Library and Archives of Florida

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151

W. E.W.E. Dancer

W. E.W.E. Dancer, composer of dialect and lyric poetry, was a native of Alabama, but resided in Jacksonville from 1919 until his death in 1934. His writings had already made their appearance before he finished his education at TuskeegeeTuskegee. In 1906, he published <hi style="underline">Today and Yesterday</hi>, a book of lyrics and dialect poetry. In 1915, his second published work, <hi style="underline">Fact, Fun, and Fiction</hi>, was issued at Montgomery. Both volumes drew favorable comment from critics all over the country.

<hi style="underline">Sunshine and <sic>Shadow</sic></hi>, See Sunshine and Shadows. written in Jacksonville and published by the Senti—nel Publishing Co.Company in 1925, was largely in dialect, and followed closely the form made so popular by Paul Lawrence Dunbar in his serio–comic presentation of typical Negro situations. Many of the poems in the volume are based on observations Dancer made during his extensive travels through Florida and the southeastSoutheast. One, a long and highly amusing poem written at Gainesville during a brief stay there, related humorously a very serious problem he had encountered while in attendance at a convention: bedbugs. Others were written in a more serious vein, and pathos and suffering are not missing.

Dancer died at the age of 50fifty, but not before he had seen the fulfillment of a dream he had had for years: the publication of his three books in one volume. It is obtainable in the local library.