Tina McElroy Ansa Biography

Author, publisher, director, teacher, and journalist Tina McElroy Ansa also works in publishing and movies. She is a great storyteller, though. She describes herself as "one of those young Southern girls who always knew she wanted to be a writer, part of a long and revered writing history." In the 1950s, she grew up in Middle Georgia listening to both strangers' stories downtown in her father's juke joint and her grandfather's stories on the porch of her family's house. The New York Times selected Ansa's debut book, Baby of the Family, a Notable Book of the Year. It also reached the African American Bestseller List for Paperback Fiction. The Georgia Center for the Book named Baby of the Family one of the "Top 25 Books Every Georgian Should Read." The book also received the 1989 Georgia Authors Series Award and was named the Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association in 1990. She is now working on adapting Baby of the Family for the big screen with her filmmaker spouse Joneé Ansa, an American Film Institute Fellow. The movie will star Alfre Woodard, Loretta Devine, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Vanessa Williams, Todd Bridges, Pam Grier, and Tonea Stewart. Ugly Ways, Ansa's second book, was awarded Best Fiction by The African American Blackboard List in 1994. It also led to Ansa's nomination for an NAACP Image Award. The Georgia Center for the Book named the book one of the "Top 25 Books Every Georgian Should Read" in 2005. In order to bring Ugly Ways to the big screen, Ansa has teamed up with award-winning actress Alfre Woodard. Her third book, The Hand I Fan With, is a delightfully sexual love story about "Lena McPherson" and the spirit she summons to love and adore her—a ghost who is 100 years old. The Georgia Authors Series Award for 1996 went to the book. The only other recipient of this prize twice is Ansa, who also received it for her first book, Baby of the Family. You Know Better, her fourth book, tells the tale of "LaShawndra Pines," a 19-year-old "hoochie mama" who wants to dance in the backdrop of a music video, through the voices of three generations of the "Pines" women. The American Library Association awarded it a Best Fiction Award for its treatment of modern youth concerns and ethos. She served as a copy editor, cosmetics editor, layout editor, entertainment writer, features editor, and news reporter for The Atlanta Constitution throughout the course of her eight years there. She also served as The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer's editor and copy editor. She has taught at universities, libraries, and cultural institutions around the nation since 1982. She has worked as a freelance journalist, newspaper columnist, and writing workshop instructor at Brunswick College, Emory University, Paine College, Perimeter College, and Spelman College.

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