New York City, New York (January 25, 1950 -September 28, 2016) age 66 yrs

Gloria Naylor was a major 20th century writer of African American literature. She was born six weeks after her parents moved to the city from Robinsville, Mississippi. They moved to escape the racially segregated South. It is that combination of her family’s Southern roots and her upbringing in the urban North that influenced her writing. Naylor’s essay, “A Life on Beekman Place,” was published by Essence Magazine in November 1979.  That essay became a chapter in her highly acclaimed first novel, The Women of Brewster Place. She completed the novel in 1981. The novel was later adapted into a movie by the same  name, which was produced by Oprah Winfrey in 1989