Author Bio
I am a native of St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up on the city's north side in an all-black working class community. I was educated in the St. Louis Public School System in segregated schools. My family didn't have a lot of money but we were blessed. We were healthy, had all of our basic needs met, had lots of love, friends and family, and a wonderful church home, Washington Metropolitan AME Zion Church, a historic institution that was established in the city during the late nineteenth century.
I was always active in my church and started singing in the choir when I was three years old. As I grew, I became quite active with choral activities and at the age of eleven was selected to sing in a city-wide children's choir that did guest performances with the renowned St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which was then under the direction of the esteemed conductor, Maestro Leonard Slatkin. I also sang throughout high school, college, and continue to perform as a soloist with my current church home's Inspirational Singers Contemporary Gospel Choir, at St. Joseph's AME Church in Durham, North Carolina.
I started telling stories when I was a little bitty thing. I started writing stories on that huge, lined elementary school paper in pencil when I was eight years old at the suggestion of my mother, who told me it would be easier to read all that I was making up and trying to tell her at any given time. My first stories were generally about little black girls who lived in St. Louis. These tales were taking to another level when I reached high school and started writing about black urban teen life during the 1970s. My first audience consisted of my cousins (I'm an only child) and good friends, who read the handwritten stories and passed them down, page-by-page, mid-west assembly line style, reader-to-reader while we sat an the porch or at the lunch table at school.
After graduating from Beaumont High School, I won a full scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis and earned an undergraduate degree with honors in Psychology. I also earned an M.S.W. in Social Work, along with an M. Ed. in Counseling Education from Washington University. Later I moved to North Carolina and completed my academic training by earning graduate degrees in Public Health as well as United States History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
I was on my way to becoming a history professor when the writing bug really hit me and I started writing what was the rough draft of my first novel, Church Folk. I originally titled this book "The Missionary Ladies" but quickly came up with Church Folk after my good friend, Dr. Valerie Kaalund, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, took one look at that title, frowned and said, "NO. NO!"
I became a writer and subsequently an "author," when Church Folk became the third book in an African American Christian Fiction line of books under a new Warner Books Imprint called Walk Worthy Press in June 2001. I was blessed beyond belief with the response to this outrageously funny book about black "peepes" who went to "chutch." And since that time, I have published two other books with Warner, Second Sunday (June 2003) and Holy Ghost Corner (September 2006).I am currently writing a fourth book that has not been titled but continues with my tales of African American religious life and culture. Writing is a ministry for me. I love the Lord and I love writing about God and church life. It has been a tremendous blessing to reach so many people with my stories. I praise God for this. I can't imagine writing in any other way.
God has been good to me. I have my health and strength, a loving husband, three beautiful children, a great church home, and friends and family. I also have loyal readers and fans who have blessed me with their support and praise for these books. God bless you all.
"I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together." Psalm 34: 1-3, NIV