Each month, we highlight birthdays of authors for you to discover through print and digital items as well as online biographies. In the post below, click on the author’s name to find titles by them in our catalog. Read a bit about each author, and find their full biography in the database listed! Find the database at www.tulsalibrary.org/databases, then log in with your last name and TCCL card number.
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Ann Petry (born Oct. 12, 1908): "Ann Petry authored several novels, short stories, and juvenile fiction. By debunking stereotypes of race, class, and gender, Petry contributed significantly to the nonsentimental depiction of the socio-economic plight of African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s and thereby paved the way for contemporary African American women's writing." From the African American Experience database.
Roxane Gay (born Oct. 15, 1974): "Roxane Gay is an African American queer writer, commentator, and university professor. Her multigenre works include essays, opinion pieces, short stories, a novel, a memoir, and a Marvel Comics series. One of her most celebrated works in Bad Feminist (2014), a collection of essays on how feminism has influenced her life. The many subjects of Gay's writings include racism, feminism, LGBTQ issues, personal identity, body image, social misfits, complicated relationships, sexual violence, pop culture, and politics. Her prose has been described as "simple and direct."Some of her writings are in the style of imaginative fables and fairy tales. Among Gay's many honors is the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship for General Nonfiction." From the African American Experience database.
Ntozake Shange (born Oct. 18, 1948): "Playwright, poet, and novelist, Ntozake Shange combines cultural feminism with Pan-Africanism in her distincitive contribution to African American arts. Her enormously popular choreopoem, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1975), combines poetry, drama, and movement, and made Shange one of the preeminent African American poets." From the African American Experience database.
Terry McMillan (born Oct. 18, 1951): "Terry McMillan is an American novelist and screenwriter whose works take the form of roman à clefs (a mixture of nonfiction and fiction) and center around the lives of African American women, often fusing tragedy and humor. The most famous examples are Disappearing Acts, Waiting to Exhale, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back." From the African American Experience database.
Nikki Grimes (born Oct. 20, 1950): "Nikki Grimes once observed: 'The word, both written and spoken, has always held a special fascination for me. It seemed uncanny that words, spread across a page just so, had the power to transport me to another time or place. But they could. I spent many hours ensconced in the local library, reading--nay, devouring--book after book after book. Books were my soul's delight. Even so, in one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home. I couldn't articulate it then, but I sensed a need for validation which the books I read did not supply. 'When I grow up,' I thought, 'I'll write books about children who look and feel like me.''" From the Biography in Context database.
Michael Eric Dyson (born Oct. 23, 1958): "Michael Eric Dyson is an African American professor, scholar, and author. He is best known for addressing issues of race and culture. He has written extensively on the topic and has published more than a dozen books. Dyson has also appeared on many popular talk shows, served as a political analyst for MSNBC, taught academic courses on gangsta rap and hip-hop music, and even testified before congressional subcommittees on issues of concern to black Americans." From the Biography in Context database.
Rudolfo Anaya (born Oct. 30, 1937): "Rudolfo Anaya was one of the premier Chicano writers in the United States. He drew on his own experiences and heritage, complete with the magic he found in the world as he grew up. Anaya established himself as the leading voice of Chicano culture and values in American literature. The poetry, symbolism, and spirituality of that culture play a leading role in his writings, and Anaya made it accessible to people of different backgrounds." From the Latino American Experience database.
