Laina Dawes is the author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal (Bazillion Points, 2012). She is also a music and cultural critic whose writing can be found in print and online magazines, such as Hazlitt, Bitch, SPIN, Cuepoint, Wondering Sound, Flavorwire, Refinery29, MTV Iggy, MySpace, The Wire UK, NPR, Toronto Star and Exclaim! Canada. Laina recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies from The New School for Social Research in New York City and completed her undergraduate studies in Political Science and Sociology from York University in Toronto, Canada.