A professor of English at James Madison University, Dr. Gabbin founded the Furious Flower Poetry Center in 1999, prompted by the overwhelming success of the historic gathering she hosted at the university in 1994, which was the first academic conference on black poetry. As executive director of the center, Dr. Gabbin remains a visionary leader. She is the author of Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition, editor of Furious Flower: African American Poetry From the Black Arts Movement to the Present and The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry, and executive producer of the Furious Flower video and DVD series.