COLEMAN, Evelyn 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born July 3, 1948, in Burlington, NC; daughter of Edward (a builder) and Annie S. (a teacher) Coleman; married Thomas Mueed, July 3, 1967 (divorced); married Talib Din (a professor), December 27, 1991; children: (first marriage) Travara, Latrayan. Ethnicity: "African American." Education: Attended North Carolina University, 1967-69; attended John Hopkins University, 1970-71. Politics: "Liberal." Religion: "Love." Hobbies and other interests: Reading, kite flying, collecting antiques.

ADDRESSES:

Home—788 Rosedale Ave., Atlanta, GA 30312. Agent—Liza Voges, Kirchoff/Wohlberg, Inc., 866 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Novelist, screenwriter, and author of children's books.

MEMBER:

Mystery Writers of America Southeast (past president), Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Sisters in Crime, Authors Guild, Novelist, Inc.

AWARDS, HONORS:

North Carolina Arts Council fellowship, 1987; Smithsonian Notable Children's Book designation, for White Socks Only and The Riches ofOseola McCarty; Parents' Choice Foundation Honor Book, 1999, for The Glass Bottle Tree; International Honor Book, Society of School Librarians, 1999, for The Riches of Oseola McCarty; Atlanta Mayor's Fellowship for Literary Achievement, 1999; named Georgia Author of the Year, Georgia Writers, 2002; honoree, National Teachers of English, Latino and Black Caucus, 2002.

WRITINGS:

What a Woman's Gotta Do (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

FOR CHILDREN

The Foot Warmer and the Crow, illustrated by Daniel Minter, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1994.

White Socks Only, illustrated by Tyrone Geter, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1996.

The Glass Bottle Tree, illustrated by Gail Gordon Carter, Orchard (New York, NY), 1996.

To Be a Drum, illustrated by Aminah Brenda Robinson, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1997.

What If (board book), Celebration Press, 1997.

The Riches of Oseola McCarty, illustrated by Daniel Minter, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1998.

Flight of Kites, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1999.

All for One, Rigby International, 2000.

Born in Sin, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2001.

Circle of Fire (part of "American Girl History Mysteries" series), Pleasant Company (Middleton, WI), 2001.

Mystery of the Dark Tower (part of "American Girl History Mysteries" series), Pleasant Company (Middleton, WI), 2000.

Contributor to Time for Kids Readers, Harcourt-Horizons, 2004; also ghost writer for middle-grade series books; also author of screenplays.

Contributor to anthologies, including Men We Cherish: African-American Women Praise the Men in Their Lives, edited by Brooke Stevens, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1997; Proverbs for the People, edited by Tracy Price-Thompson and TaRessa Stovall, Kensington Publishing, 2003; Shades of Black, Teckno Books, 2004; and Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood, edited by Cecelie Berry, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Utne Reader, Accent on Living, Southern Exposure, Essence, Black Enterprise, Quarterly Black Review, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Drum Voices Revue, Catalyst Literary Journal, Winston-Salem Chronicle, Accent on Living, Jive, National Scope, and Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora.

ADAPTATIONS:

White Socks Only was adapted as a live-action film and videocassette, Phoenix Films, 2000.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Another adult novel, a young-adult book, and several picture books.

SIDELIGHTS:

Evelyn Coleman is an inspirational children's writer who focuses on addressing the issues of justice and humanity, largely in relation to minority cultures. Often utilizing basic archetypal messages in her children's fiction, Coleman dramatically develops her protagonists throughout the course of each of her books, moving them from childlike innocence to a final state of experience and strengthened knowledge of the outside world. Born in Sin, Coleman's 2001 young-adult novel, displays her natural ability to strongly convey her message to readers via her characters' "personal city voices that ring true: tough, honest, witty, grim, and beautiful," in the opinion of Hazel Rochman in Booklist. In addition to novels, Coleman has also penned a number of picture-book texts, as well as the highly praised adult novel What a Woman's Gotta Do.

Born in Sin tells the story of an ambitious teenager named Keisha, who finds herself knocked off her intended career track to be a doctor and sidelined for several months in a summer camp for underprivileged kids. While the novel was criticized for excessive stereotypes and "some far-fetched and serpentine plot developments," according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly the book also contains a "strong narrative voice" which Coleman "combined with some striking characters and relationships." "Although the happy ending may rattle cynics," Gerry Larson added in School Library Journal, "teenage readers will find promise, hope, and satisfaction in Keisha's prospects." Coleman's 1997 picture book To Be a Drum tells an inspiring story about slavery with the help of a wonderfully crafted metaphor using the beat of drums, "The text enters your mind as a beautiful poem, stirring up images of the past and the present," wrote Paulette Ansari in a review for Skipping Stones, while a Publishers Weekly contributor maintained that the book's "strong emotional charge is universal." Another book for younger children is White Socks Only, about a grandmother who recalls what it was like to grow up in the South amid racial tensions. Carolyn Phelan, appraising the story in Booklist, cited Coleman's book as "an effective portrayal of a child's innocence and her awakening to racism," while in Publishers Weekly a reviewer called White Socks Only a "strong" story with a "considerable emotional charge."

Coleman's 1998 adult novel, What a Woman's Gotta Do, "represents a monumental departure from her children's books" in the opinion of Ken Rollins in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A thriller, the novel focuses on journalist and recovering alcoholic Patricia Conley, whose attempts to track down the fiancé who supposedly jilted her result in discoveries about a genetic engineering scheme with its roots in the distant past as well as illuminations regarding her own inability to trust. What a Woman's Gotta Do "provides vivid detail and suspense," according to Vanessa Bush in Booklist, while a reviewer for Publishers Weekly stated that, "Although Coleman occasionally bogs down in scientific detail, her inventive, funny debut makes it clear that she knows how to keep the pages turning."

Coleman told CA: "All my books basically address issues of justice and humanity. I believe strongly in the written word to inspire others to take up the sword of right-action. In my writing I want to make someone laugh, cry, or piss them off. I do believe that the greatest writers are those that force people outside their comfort zone. I do write with all people in mind, however I hope to give voice to minority cultures which have been ignored in heroic roles in literature. I want to tell a story from the lion's point of view, not always the hunter's. I like strong females and strong males. I believe it is time to be aware that human emotion is shared across gender lines. Literature should reflect the world we live in but also strive to show us a better, more improved world too. For me, children's literature is the most difficult to write, mainly because of all the subliminal messages related in words, that must be carefully weighed. Even though our society claims to value children, walk into the average bookstore and the children's books are relegated to the back. If people are having a serious conversation about literature 'children's literature' is seldom mentioned. Yet it is these archetypal stories that last for hundreds of years and travel across great divides. As a children's writer and an adult writer, I can tell you, only the struggle to get a children's book right forces me to my knees for contemplation and prayer."

When asked what first interested her about writing, Coleman replied: "My family encouraged my imagination as a child. I was the storyteller in my large extended family. Later, I would write the stories down. But it wasn't until after winning the North Carolina fiction fellowship that I decided to pursue writing professionally. I immediately began taking writing classes, going to workshops, and studying the craft more systematically. I wrote for adults for about four years before attending Vassar, Highlights, and Rice University's children's writing programs. After that I decided I might be ready to write for children.

"My writing process is in spurts. Sometimes I write for days, barely stopping to eat or sleep. Then at other times I can't write even if someone is dangling money over my eyes. I don't try to force it, I wait until it happens. I am learning more patience this way.

"The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is that writing is as serendipitous as life. Sometimes I plant a sentence that appears out of place. I wonder why on earth I put it there only to find out later it grows into the answer to a question I haven't even asked yet.

"Of my work, I have three favorite books, one adult and two children's books that resonate with me for very different reasons. My adult thriller, What a Woman's Gotta Do, allowed me to fulfill a life-long dream. As an avid espionage reader since I was sixteen, I always wanted to read about a larger-than-life female character who could save the world from a major catastrophe or at the very least unravel a dastardly plot. With the character Patricia Conley I did that plus introduced information about the African Dogon you wouldn't ordinarily read about in an espionage-type book. And like most espionage books, What a Woman's Gotta Do forces the mind to consider new paradigms.

"On the other hand, Circle of Fire, a book for middle-grade readers, is a book I wouldn't have been able to dream of writing as a child, since I grew up in a segregated South. In someone had told me that I would one day write a book about a twelve-year-old African-American female adventurer who saves the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, even if it was historical fiction, I wouldn't have believed them. I still have trouble believing that the Pleasant Company gave me this unbelievable opportunity.

"And then there is White Socks Only. This book has offered me the most profound experiences and the most surprising outcomes of all my work. From the folks at Albert Whitman's bravery to publish the book, to the teacher in Seattle's class that put on the play (who wrote to me that none of the kids wanted to play the white people), to the young boy at Gallaudet's elementary school, who jumped up and signed 'That little girl is me,' transcending not only color but gender, I am continually amazed by this story's ability to shake people awake. Since my first published book, one of the things that has been brought to my attention is that I didn't have any 'good white people' in my work. At first I was amazed by this accusation since anyone who knows me would know that it is the craft of storytelling and the restrictions of the number of pages in a picture book that limited the characters, not some desire to 'out' white people as 'bad.' However, soon I realized that this had larger implications for some readers. It was alright to have a book depicting only a 'bad' Black person, or a 'bad' Native person, but when it came to white people if there was a 'bad' white person there needed to be a 'good' white person to balance it out. Even all the books I read about slavery seemed to follow this same pattern, with a line inserted no matter what the story that there were some 'decent' slave owners. Now how a child wraps their mind around the notion of a 'decent' slave owner is not a mystery to me. As a child, without the benefit of subtle nuance of good and bad, I concluded that 'slavery' as an institution wasn't all that bad, you just needed a 'good' slave owner. This distorting integration in a child's psyche of a 'decent' slave owner is as important to a child's sense of justice, as how one comes to learn about the Holocaust. You will not find in every book for children about the Holocaust a line that says, 'There were many decent Germans.' It is this type of subliminal lack of cognizance of racism and prejudice that I fight continually in my work. When a child reads my work I want them to know which behavior is 'good' and which is 'bad,' no matter who is carrying it out. I want children to know that there are some behaviors that are never 'decent' and owning another person is one of them.

"When people read my work I want to make them think deeply and more critically about life in general. I want children to know that it is important to stand up for what is right and just in the world. And that to remain silent, or to go along with injustice is wrong. I also want people to question their own life's path, to feel more empowered and adventurous and to dare to live fully. It is imporant that people step outside their world, their comfort zone and explore the intimacies of another life. It is only through the total immersion in another culture that we can confront racism, prejudice, and the erroneous belief that somehow poverty and crime are synonymous. And most of all, if you make an intimate friend of a minority, people will not be so inclined to believe that there is little racism left in this country. If you are not a reader of color and have no close minority friends you might wonder why minorities insist on bringing up racism every chance they get. But I can assure you, as an African-American female, I can honestly say, I have encountered some form of racism, if I ventured outside my neighborhood, at least once every week since I was twelve years old. Now, that's a lot of racism considering I am at this writing forty-three years later. So, you see, I am as tired of having to bring it up as you might be of reading about it. So I acknowledge, when you read my work there will always be at least one of these three themes: justice, fairness and yes, always love!

"Of course, my father told me that when people try to take over countries they 'kill the writers first,' so my dream is to write something so important for the survival of mankind that someone wants to hunt me down and kill me. So far, I am a long way from being able to write something so powerful. But I am working every day to improve my writing skills."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 16, 1998, Ken Rollins, review of What a Woman's Gotta Do, p. JD6.

Booklist, February 15, 1996, Carolyn Phelan, review of White Socks Only, p. 1025; February 15, 1998, Carolyn Phelan, review of To Be a Drum, p. 981, and Vanessa Bush, review of What a Woman's Gotta Do, p. 1019; December 15, 1998, Ilene Cooper, review of The Riches of Oseola McCarty, p. 745; February 15, 2001, Hazel Rochman, review of Born in Sin, p. 1148; January 1, 2002, Shelley Townsend-Hudson, review of Circle of Fire, p. 856.

Book Report, September-October, 2001, David Lininger, review of Born in Sin, p. 59.

Horn Book, January, 1999, Roger Sutton, review of The Riches of Oseola McCarty, p. 78.

Publishers Weekly, September 26, 1994, review of The Foot Warmer and the Crow, p. 70; February 19, 1996, review of White Socks Only, p. 215; January 19, 1998, review of What a Woman's Gotta Do, p. 371; March 23, 1998, review of To Be a Drum, p. 99; April 2, 2001, review of Born in Sin, p. 66.

School Library Journal, August, 2000, Emily Herman, review of White Socks Only, p. 55; March, 2001, Gerry Larson, review of Born in Sin, p. 245.

Skipping Stones, May-August, 2000, Paulette Ansari, review of To Be a Drum, p. 9.