Valerie Boyd

Valerie Boyd

Valerie Boyd is the author of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, a biography of the novelist, anthropologist and legendary boundary-breaker. Boyd is also a journalism professor at the University of Georgia and the former arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As a cultural critic and freelance writer, she has published articles, essays and reviews in numerous publications, including Step Into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature, Ms. magazine, The Oxford American, Book magazine, Essence, The Washington Post, Creative Nonfiction and African American Review.

Boyd’s Wrapped in Rainbows—the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston in 25 years—was published in January 2003 to enormous critical acclaim. Boyd was named Georgia Author of the Year in nonfiction; Alice Walker hailed Wrapped in Rainbows as “magnificent” and “extraordinary.” The American Library Association chose it for a 2004 Notable Book Award; the Georgia Center for the Book proclaimed it one of “25 Books That All Georgians Should Read”; and the Southern Book Critics Circle honored Wrapped in Rainbows with the 2003 Southern Book Award for best nonfiction of the year.

Boyd’s next book, Spirits in the Dark: The Untold Story of Black Women in Hollywood, will be published by Knopf in 2008.

Site by Lenz                                                                                                                                                                        Phone: (404) 645-9331.