Tina
McElroy Ansa is
a novelist, publisher, filmmaker, teacher and journalist.
But above all, she is a storyteller. She calls herself “part
of a long and honored writing tradition, one of those
little Southern girls who always knew she wanted
to be a writer.” She grew up in Middle
Georgia in the 1950s hearing her grandfather’s
stories on the porch of her family home and strangers’ stories
downtown in her father’s juke joint, which
have inspired Mulberry, Georgia, the mythical world
of her four novels, Baby of the Family,
Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With and You
Know Better.
In
March 2007, Ms. Ansa launched an independent publishing
company, DownSouth Press, with its focus on African-American
literature -- fiction and nonfiction. Her fifth novel, Taking
After Mudear, a sequel to her bestselling Ugly
Ways, will be the lead title on DownSouth
Press’s first list in the fall of 2007. DownSouth
Press will publish established as well as emerging
literary voices.
Ms.
Ansa’s
first novel, Baby of
the Family, was published in 1989
by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and was named a
Notable Book of the Year by The New
York Times. Baby of the
Family was also on the African-America
Best-seller List for Paperback Fiction. In October
2001, Baby of the Family was
chosen by the Georgia Center for the Book as
one of the “Top 25 books Every Georgian
Should Read.” The book was also awarded
The American Library Association Best Book for
Young Adults in 1990, and won the 1989 Georgia
Authors Series Award.
She
and her husband, AFI (American Film Institute)
Fellow filmmaker Joneé Ansa are currently
adapting Baby of the Family for
the screen in a feature film starring Alfre Woodard,
Loretta Devine, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Vanessa Williams,
Todd Bridges, Pam Grier, and Tonea Stewart. The
author is collaborating with her husband on the screenplay
for Baby of the Family,
which he will direct and shoot in her hometown of
Macon, Georgia. Ms. Ansa is executive producer.
Harcourt
Brace published Ms. Ansa’s second
novel, Ugly Ways, in July
1993. The African-America Blackboard List named
the novel Best Fiction in 1994. Ms. Ansa was
nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 1994 for Ugly
Ways and the novel was on the African-American
Best-sellers/Blackboard List for more than two years.
In 2005, the novel was included in the current list
of the “Top 25 Books Every Georgian Should
Read” by the Georgia Center for the Book. Award-winning
actress Alfre Woodard has entered into a partnership
with Ms. Ansa to bring Ugly Ways to
the screen.
The Hand I Fan With,
her third novel, was published in October of 1996.
This is the beautifully erotic love story of Lena
McPherson and the 100-year old ghost – Herman – she
calls up to love and cherish her. The novel was awarded
the Georgia Authors Series Award for 1996. Ms.
Ansa also won this same award for her debut novel, Baby
of the Family, and is the only two-time
winner of the award.
Tina
McElroy Ansa’s fourth novel, You
Know Better, was published in Spring
2002 by William Morrow Publishers. The novel,
told in the voices of three generations of the
Pines women, is the story of LaShawndra
Pines, a 19-year-old aspiring “hoochie
mama” who aspires to dance in the background
of a music video. It addresses the contemporary
issues and ethos of young people and received
a Best Fiction award by the American Library
Association.
In 2005, Ms. Ansa was awarded the 2005 Stanley W.
Lindberg Award for her body and work and for contributions
to the literary arts community of Georgia. In 2002,
Ms Ansa was inducted into the International Literary
Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the
Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University.
In
the fall of 2004, Ms. Ansa established the Sea Island
Writers Retreats on Sapelo Island, Georgia which
offers seminars in fiction, nonfiction, memoir and
editing led by published writers and professional
editors. The annual retreats seek to assist
emerging and established writers in honing their
work and skills in fiction, non-fiction, memoir and
editing in sessions with professional writers and
editors.
In
2006, she extended the writers retreats throughout
the country with the Sea Island Writers Retreats…On
the Road. The first two of these traveling literary
retreats were held in Atlanta, Georgia on the Spelman
College campus at the Women’s Research and
Resource Center in April 2006 and 2007 with best-selling
authors, screenwriters and editors leading the workshop
and lectures.
Together with Dazon Diallo of SisterLove Inc., in
the spring of 2006, Ms. Ansa launched the South African
African-American SisterLove Sisters Sharing (SAAASSS)
book program that collects sizable numbers of signed
books from African-American women authors that are
shared with book clubs and organizations of women
in South Africa. So far, the SAAASSS program has
distributed more than 300 books through this on-going
effort.
Tina
McElroy Ansa has been a regular contributor to
the award-winning television series CBS Sunday
Morning with her essays, “Postcards from Georgia.” She
also writes magazine and newspaper articles, Op-Ed
pieces and book reviews for the Los Angeles Times,
(New York) Newsday, The Atlanta Constitution,
and the Florida Times-Union. Her non-fiction
work has appeared in Essence Magazine, The Crisis
Magazine, MS. Magazine, America Magazine, and Atlanta
Magazine.
She
was a Writer-in-Residence at her alma mater, Spelman
College, in Atlanta in the Fall of 1990 where she
also taught creative writing. In addition
to touring for her books and giving lectures, she
has presented her work at the Smithsonian’s
African-American Center’s Author’s Series;
the Richard Wright/Zora Neale Hurston Foundation;
the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series and fundraisers at
the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Schomburg Center,
Savannah College of Art and Design and the PEN American
Center. She is on the Advisory Council for
the Georgia Center for the Book and on the host committee
for the Flannery O’Connor Awards.
Reflecting
her concern with the issue of homelessness in this
country, she has participated in fund-raising events
including readings at the SOS-sponsored Writers
Harvest at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and at the University
of Georgia in Athens. She has also volunteered
for fundraisers and house-buildings for Habitat for
Humanity and has read at the Atlanta-based fundraisers
for Aid to Children of Imprisoned Mothers.
In
2001, she founded the Good Lil’ School
Girl Foundation to promote and honor women of color of
all ages for their contributions to the arts, community,
health and spiritual growth. She has also established
Good Lil’ School Girl Book Clubs in grammar,
middle and high schools around the country.Tina
McElroy Ansa was born in Macon, Georgia, the youngest
of five children. In 1971, she graduated from Spelman
College, the historically black women’s college
which is part of the Atlanta University Center. Her
first job after college in 1971 was on the copy desk
of The Atlanta Constitution, where
she was the first black woman to work on the morning
newspaper. During her eight years at The
Atlanta Constitution, she worked as copy editor,
makeup editor, layout editor, entertainment writer,
features editor, and news reporter. She also
worked as editor and copy editor for The Charlotte
(NC) Observer. Since 1982, she has been
a freelance journalist, newspaper columnist and writing
workshop instructor at Brunswick College, Emory University,
Paine College, Perimeter College and Spelman College,
as well as lecturing at colleges, libraries, and
cultural centers around the country.
She
and her husband, Joneé Ansa, have lived
on St. Simons Island, Georgia since 1984. Together
they produced and directed the 1989 Georgia Sea Island
Festival, a 30-year-old grassroots festival that
seeks to preserve the crafts, music, slave chants,
games, food and spirit of the African-American people
who lived and worked as slaves on the rice and cotton
plantations along the Georgia coast. Ms. Ansa
is an avid birder, amateur naturalist, and gardener. She
always has collard greens growing in her garden among
the black-eyed Susans and moonflowers.
For more information on Ms. Ansa and to contact
her, go to www.tinamcelroyansa.com or www.downsouthpress.com |