Anissa Gray
Anissa Gray was born and raised in western Michigan, where her father pastored a Pentecostal church and her mother was a homemaker. She graduated from Western Michigan University and received her Masters in English from New York University. After graduate school, Anissa went on to work as a print reporter at Reuters in Manhattan, covering global financial news. That was followed by a move to Atlanta and the initiation of her career in broadcast journalism at CNN, where she has held roles as writer, editor, and producer, receiving Emmy and duPont awards for contributions to the network’s coverage of major stories.
After more than 20 years as a journalist, Anissa, a lifelong book lover and voracious reader, pursued fiction writing, applying he
If you like author Anissa Gray here is the list of authors you may also like
Buy books on AmazonTotal similar authors (34)
-
Rebecca J. Lester
Rebecca J. Lester is a medical/psychological anthropologist with a research focus on embodiment, intersubjectivity, and cultural practices of self-cultivation.
Buy books on Amazon -
Regina Porter
Regina Porter is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 Rae Armour West Postgraduate Scholarship. She is also a 2017 Tin House Scholar. Her fiction has been published in The Harvard Review. An award-winning writer with a background in playwriting, Porter has worked with Playwrights Horizons, the Joseph Papp Theater, New York Stage and Film, the Women’s Project, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company. She has been anthologized in Plays from Woolly Mammoth by Broadway Play Services and Heinemann’s Scenes for Women by Women. She has also been profiled in Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in History and Criticism from the University of Alabama Pr
Buy books on Amazon -
Victoria Christopher Murray
Victoria Christopher Murray is the author of nine Essence bestselling novels, including The Ex Files; Too Little, Too Late; and Lady Jasmine. Winner of the African American Literary Award for Fiction and Author of the Year (Female).
Buy books on Amazon
She has received numerous awards including the Golden Pen Award for Best Inspirational Fiction and the Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazer Award for being a pioneer in African American Fiction. Since 2007, Victoria has won nine African American Literary Awards for best novel, best Christian fiction and Author of the Year — Female. After four nominations, Victoria finally won an NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Literary Work for her social commentary novel, Stand Your Ground.
Victoria splits her time between Los Angeles a -
Denene Millner
Denene Millner is a six-time New York Times best-selling author, Emmy Award-nominated TV show host and award-winning journalist and book publisher who has written more than 30 books, among them: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, co-written with Steve Harvey; Around the Way Girl, a memoir with actress Taraji P. Henson; the Fresh Princess picture books, with Will Smith; and, The Vow, the novel on which the hit Lifetime movie, “With This Ring,” was based. The writer and editor is also the editorial director and publisher of Denene Millner Books, an award-winning imprint that publishes stories featuring Black children and families, by Black authors and illustrators. The DMB list includes two Caldecott Honor books, a Kirkus Prize for Children’s
Buy books on Amazon -
Bernice L. McFadden
BERNICE L. McFADDEN is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels including Praise Song for the Butterflies (Long listed for the 2019 Women's Prize in Fiction ) The Book of Harlan (winner of a 2017 American Book Award and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction) Sugar, Loving Donovan, Nowhere Is a Place, The Warmest December, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012) and Glorious . She is a four-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of four awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA).
Buy books on Amazon
McFadden has also penned five novels under the pseudonym: Geneva Holliday
She is a visiting assistant professor of creative -
Adrienne Brodeur
Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the novel "Little Monsters," a New York Times Editor's Choice and a Vogue Best Book of 2023, and the memoir “Wild Game,” which was a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, NPR, People, and the Washington Post. Both "Little Monster" and "Wild Game" are in development as films. She founded the literary magazine, “Zoetrope: All-Story” with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, was an acquiring editor at HMH Books, and served as a judge for the National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in Glamour, O Magazine, The National, The New York Times, Vogue, and other publications. She is the Executive Director of the literary nonprofit, Aspen Words
Buy books on Amazon -
Laurie Frankel
Laurie Frankel is the bestselling author of five novels: FAMILY FAMILY, coming 1/23/24, as well as ONE TWO THREE, THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS, GOODBYE FOR NOW, and THE ATLAS OF LOVE. She lives with her family on a very steep hill in Seattle, but she's an east coaster at heart. She is also a baseball fan, a soup maker, a theater lover, a yoga practicer, a comma expert, and a huge reader (just like you).
Buy books on Amazon -
Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward is the author of Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Men We Reaped. She is a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University) and Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University.
Buy books on Amazon
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American. -
Julia Langbein
JULIA LANGBEIN, a sketch and standup comedian for many years, holds a doctorate in Art History and is the author of a non-fiction book about comic art criticism (Laugh Lines, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2022).
Buy books on Amazon
She wrote the viral comedy blog The Bruni Digest (2003-7), which reviewed New York Times critic Frank Bruni’s restaurant reviews every week and has since written about food, art and travel for Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Frieze and other publications.
A native of Chicago, she lives outside of Paris with her family. -
Mary Beth Keane
Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. She is the author of The Walking People, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes, which was a New York Times Best Seller and was translated into twenty-two languages. Her new novel, The Half Moon, is forthcoming May 2, 2023.
Buy books on Amazon -
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author most recently TAKE MY HAND (2022). Take My Hand was awarded the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Literary Work-Fiction and the BCALA Fiction Award. It was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 in Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, NBC News, and elsewhere, and it was an IndieNext and LibraryReads pick for April 2022. The Washington Post called it "a jewel of a book." Her other novels include Wench (2010) and Balm (2015).
Buy books on Amazon
Dolen has established herself as a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life. In 2017, HarperCollins released her first novel Wench as one of eight "Olive Titles," limited edition modern classics that included books by Edward P. Jones, Louise Erdrich, a -
Ayana Mathis
Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE is her first novel.
Buy books on Amazon -
Regina Porter
Regina Porter is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 Rae Armour West Postgraduate Scholarship. She is also a 2017 Tin House Scholar. Her fiction has been published in The Harvard Review. An award-winning writer with a background in playwriting, Porter has worked with Playwrights Horizons, the Joseph Papp Theater, New York Stage and Film, the Women’s Project, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company. She has been anthologized in Plays from Woolly Mammoth by Broadway Play Services and Heinemann’s Scenes for Women by Women. She has also been profiled in Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in History and Criticism from the University of Alabama Pr
Buy books on Amazon -
Rachel Khong
RACHEL KHONG is the author of the novels Real Americans, a New York Times bestseller, and Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction. From 2011 to 2016, she was an editor of Lucky Peach, a quarterly magazine of food and culture. In 2018, Rachel founded The Ruby, a work and event space for writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. Her story collection, My Dear You, will be published by Knopf in April 2026. Since 2021, she has mentored emerging writers with the Periplus Mentorship Collective. With friends, she teaches as The Dream Side (www.thedreamside.com).
Buy books on Amazon -
Steven Rowley
Steven Rowley is the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus, a Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, The Editor, named by NPR and Esquire Magazine as one of the Best Books of 2019, and The Guncle, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist for 2021 Novel of the Year and semi-finalist for The Thurber Prize in American Humor. His fiction has been published in twenty languages. Rowley lives in Palm Springs, CA with his husband, the writer Byron Lane.
Buy books on Amazon -
Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jerkins is the author of the New York Times bestseller, This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America and the forthcoming Wandering In Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots.
Buy books on Amazon
A graduate of Princeton University and the Bennington Writing Seminars, Jerkins is the current Senior Editor at ZORA of Medium and former Associate Editor at Catapult. She teaches at Columbia University's School of the Arts and most recently was the Picador Professor at Leipzig University in Germany.
She's based in Harlem. -
Charmaine Wilkerson
Charmaine Wilkerson is an American writer who has lived in the Caribbean and is based in Italy. She is a former journalist and recovered marathon runner whose award-winning short stories can be found in various UK and US anthologies and magazines. Black Cake (2022) was her first novel.
Buy books on Amazon -
Christine Pride
Christine Pride is a writer, editor, and longtime publishing veteran. She’s held editorial posts at many different trade imprints, including Doubleday, Broadway, Crown, Hyperion, and Simon & Schuster. As an editor, Christine has published a range of books, with a special emphasis on inspirational stories and memoirs, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. As a freelance editorial consultant, she does select editing and proposal/content development, as well as teaching and coaching, and pens a regular column—“Race Matters”—for Cup of Jo. She lives in New York City.
Buy books on Amazon -
Suzanne Park
Suzanne Park is a Korean-American writer who was born and raised in Tennessee. In her former life as a stand-up comedian, she was a finalist in the Oxygen Network's "Girls Behaving Badly" talent search, and appeared on BET's "Coming to the Stage." Suzanne was also the winner of the Seattle Sierra Mist Comedy Competition, and was a semi-finalist in NBC's "Stand Up For Diversity" showcase in San Francisco alongside comedians Ali Wong and Nico Santos.
Buy books on Amazon
More info about her books can be found at https://linktr.ee/suzannepark -
Nancy Johnson
Nancy Johnson is the author of the debut novel THE KINDEST LIE, which is available now everywhere books are sold! This is the story of an unlikely connection between an Ivy League-educated Black engineer searching for the son she walked away from and a poor, young white boy who finds himself adrift in a dying Indiana factory town. The novel explores race, class, identity, and the pursuit of the American dream.
Buy books on Amazon
The Kindest Lie is a Book of the Month selection, an Amazon Editors' pick, as well as an IndieNext and LibraryReads pick. This novel was reviewed by the LA Times and The Washington Post. It has been named a most anticipated book of 2021 by O, the Oprah Magazine, Shondaland, Marie Claire, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Good Hou -
Shauna Robinson
Shauna Robinson writes contemporary fiction with humor and heart. Originally from San Diego, she now lives in Virginia with her husband and their sleepy greyhound. Shauna is an introvert at heart—she spends most of her time reading, baking, and figuring out the politest way to avoid social interaction.
Buy books on Amazon -
Cat Shook
Cat Shook graduated from the University of Georgia in 2016 with degrees in Creative Writing and Mass Media Arts. Born and raised in Georgia, she now lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of If We're Being Honest, a GMA Buzz Pick, and Humor Me.
Buy books on Amazon -
LaToya Watkins
LaToya Watkins’s writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2015), and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 Emerging Writers Fellows). She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish is her debut novel.
Buy books on Amazon -
Ore Agbaje-Williams
ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS is a British-Nigerian writer and editor from North London who has written for gal—dem, Glamour UK and Wasafiri magazine. Her fiction writing has also been featured on Reflex Fiction. Her first novel, The Three of Us, was published by Jonathan Cape (UK), Putnam (US) and Penguin Random House Canada in May 2023.
Buy books on Amazon -
Terah Shelton Harris
TERAH SHELTON HARRIS is an author and former librarian, who now writes upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. She is the author of One Summer in Savannah and Long After We Are Gone. Her books have been chosen as a Target Book Club pick, LibraryReads pick, Kobo Best Book, Together We Read pick, Publisher’s Marketplace Buzz Book, and a Goodreads Choice Awards nominee for Best Debut. Terah was also named Target’s first Author of the Year. Her third book, Where the Wildflowers Grow, will be published in February 2026.
Buy books on Amazon
Find Terah online:
Website: www.terahsharris.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terahsharris/
Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/13825... -
Mai Nguyen
Mai Nguyen is a National Magazine Award–nominated journalist and copywriter who has written for Wired, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, and several major brands. Raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she now lives in Toronto. Sunshine Nails is her debut novel.
Buy books on Amazon -
Essie J. Chambers
Essie Chambers earned her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from the MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, and Baldwin for the Arts. A former film and television executive, she was a producer on the documentary Descendant, which was released by the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company and Netflix in 2022. Swift River is her debut novel.
Buy books on Amazon -
Sarai Johnson
I’m Sarai (pronounced Sara).
Buy books on Amazon
I’m a writing educator in the DC-Metropolitan Area with more than 10 years of experience. My career started in lifestyle journalism; I worked for The Indianapolis Star, The Alexandria Gazette, and DC Modern Luxury. I’ve worked with writing nonprofits Shout Mouse Press and Writopia Lab. I’ve also taught writing at Howard University and American University where I earned degrees in Journalism and Literature, respectively. I’m currently teaching full-time at Howard University while working on a second novel.
I grew up in the South (mostly Nashville, Tennessee) where I spent a lot of time hanging out by creeks and eating catfish (some of my favorite hobbies to this day).
I live in Alexandria, Virginia with my husband -
Malcolm D. Lee
Malcolm D. Lee is an award-winning writer, director, and producer celebrated for a string of box office successes, including The Best Man, Girls Trip, Night School, and Space Jam: A New Legacy. With Girls Trip, Lee made history as the first filmmaker to helm a feature with an all–African American creative team—both in front of and behind the camera—that grossed over $100 million at the domestic box office.
Buy books on Amazon
In 2022, he returned to his beloved franchise with The Best Man: The Final Chapters, the critically acclaimed Peacock limited series that became the first original on the platform to break into Nielsen’s Top 10. Most recently, Lee completed filming his 12th feature film an Untitled collaboration with Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pic -
Louise Meriwether
Louise Meriwether was an American novelist, essayist, journalist and activist, as well as a writer of biographies of historically important African Americans for children.
Buy books on Amazon -
Eugenia Kim
Eugenia Kim is an MFA graduate of Bennington College, and teaches fiction in the low-residency MFA Creative Writing Program at Fairfield University. THE CALLIGRAPHER'S DAUGHTER is her first novel, and her second novel, THE KINSHIP OF SECRETS, will be published November 6, 2018..
Buy books on Amazon -
Stephanie Covington Armstrong
Stephanie Covington Armstrong is a playwright and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Her commentary on black women and eating disorders, "Digesting the Truth," was featured on NPR. She has written for Essence, Sassy, Mademoiselle, and Venice magazines, among other publications. She authored the screenplay for Contradictions of the Heart (20th Century Fox), starring Vanessa Williams, and her plays Three Stories Down, The Outside Sisters, and The Long Journey Home have been performed in theaters in Los Angeles and New York. Her essay on bulima, "Fear and Loathing," is included in the forthcoming anthology The Black Body.
Buy books on Amazon -
Laurel Davis Huber
Laurel Davis Huber grew up in Rhode Island and Oklahoma. She is a graduate of Smith College. She has worked as a corporate newsletter editor, communications director for a botanical garden, high school English teacher, and senior development officer for both New Canaan Country School and Amherst College. She has studied with the novelist and short-story writer Leslie Pietrzyk (the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner for This Angel on My Chest) and has participated in several writing residencies at the Vermont Studio Center. She and her husband split their time between New Jersey and Maine.
Buy books on Amazon -
Aislinn Hunter
Aislinn Hunter is the author of six books: two books of poetry, three books of fiction and a book of lyric essays. She is a contributing editor at Arc Magazine and has contributed to numerous anthologies. She has a BFA in The History of Art and in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria, an MFA from The University of British Columbia, an MSc in Writing and Cultural Politics from The University of Edinburgh and is currently finishing a PhD in English Literature at Edinburgh. She teaches Creative Writing part-time at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and lives in Vancouver with her husband Glenn and two Border collies.
Buy books on Amazon