Lolita Files

Lolita Files is an American author, screenwriter, and producer. Among her six bestselling novels are book club favorites Scenes from a Sistah and Child of God. Her sixth novel, sex.lies.murder.fame was optioned for film by Carolyn Folks for Entertainment Studios with Files adapting the screenplay.
The book Once Upon A Time In Compton, by former Compton Gang Unit Detectives Timothy M. Brennan and Robert Ladd, along with Files, about Brennan and Ladd's years in the gang unit, the rise of Gangsta rap, gang wars, the L.A. riots, the investigations of the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., and the fall of the Compton Police Department was published on April 25, 2017.
Files has a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Florida and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Files lives in Los Angeles, where she writes novels, nonfiction, and writes and produces projects for television, film, and new media.
Early life and education
Lolita Files was born in Fort Lauderdale, FL, to Lillie (née Brackett) (d. 2008) and Arthur James Files, Sr. (d. 1999), She was named by her mother after the Stanley Kubrick film Lolita. She has one older sibling, Arthur James Files, Jr.
An avid reader from an early age, she was heavily immersed in mythology (Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Norse mythology, Arthurian legend), Dante's Divine Comedy, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Her love of Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Zora Neale Hurston, Louise Meriwether, Vladimir Nabokov, Chinua Achebe, Claude Brown, Richard Wright, Gustav Flaubert, and Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes would inform and influence much of her work.
Files graduated from Dillard High School with seven scholarships and attended the University of Florida at Gainesville. She briefly worked as a stringer for the student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, was a member of the University of Florida Gospel Choir, and pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority (Iota Lambda chapter). In her senior year, she was a Senator representing the College of Journalism and Communications in UF's Student Senate.
Career
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcast Journalism, Files returned to Fort Lauderdale, working as a marketing manager for a pharmaceutical company and as a regional property coordinator for Great Atlantic Property Management, a real estate management company based out of Newport News, VA with commercial and residential properties that spanned the Eastern Seaboard and parts of the Midwest. Her experience with the world of property management would later inform her first two novels, Scenes from a Sistah (1997), and its followup, Getting To The Good Part (1999).
From 1992 to 1996, Files was the National Communications Manager for the Facilities Management division of KinderCare Learning Centers, the nation's largest provider of for-profit child care and early childhood education, then based in Montgomery, AL.
Writing
In the fall of 1994, Files overnighted two comedic short stories and fifty pages of Child of God, a dramatic novel she'd been sporadically working on for five years, to literary agency Jay Garon-Brooke Associates, Inc., the agency that represented bestselling author John Grisham. In her query letter, Files stated she had eight more short stories that went with the two she sent.
Nancy Coffey, an agent from Garon-Brooke, called the next morning requesting to see the rest of the material. A week later, Files was signed by the agency.
Scenes From A Sistah and Child of God
After signing with Garon-Brooke, while working on completing Child of God, Files began writing another novel, Scenes from a Sistah, completing the first draft in seven days. In February 1996, Warner Books purchased Scenes for an advance of $50,000.
In April 1996, Files left Corporate America for a full-time career as a writer. Scenes from a Sistah debuted a year later in April 1997 and was an instant hit, quickly selling out of its first printing and landing on several bestseller lists.
"Child of God" was published in September 2001, after the release of Scenes sequel Getting to the Good Part in 1999 and Blind Ambitions, in 2000.
HodgePodge
The short stories that helped Files get signed by the Garon-Brooke literary agency were expanded into HodgePodge, a novel including several characters who feature prominently in the Scenes trilogy (Scenes from a Sistah, Getting to the Good Part, and Tastes Like Chicken). To-date, Files has not chosen to publish the book.
Off Broadway
In 1998, Files appeared in the play "Sisters Who Get Everything Without Giving Up Anything" at the Homefront Theatre, playing lead character Rea Montgomery.
Shakespeare's Hamlet vs Files' Child of God
SUNY Empire State College offers an eight-week course, "Exploring The Disciplines: Literature (EDU-232072)," centered around the examination of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Lolita Files' novel, Child of God.
Per the course description:
Who Killed Tupac? television docuseries
Files produced and appears as an investigator for A&E's six-part limited series Who Killed Tupac? In the series, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump leads an in-depth investigation into the unsolved murder of hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur.
Personal life
In December 2012, Files took a genealogical DNA test through lineage tracing company African Ancestry. Results came back revealing a direct link of Files' maternal ancestry to the Brame and Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.
Bibliography
Novels
Scenes from a Sistah - Warner Books, April 1997
Getting to the Good Part - Warner Books, January 1999
Blind Ambitions - Simon & Schuster, September 2000
Child of God - Simon & Schuster, September 2001
Tastes Like Chicken - Simon & Schuster, May 2004
sex.lies.murder.fame. - Amistad/HarperCollins, January 2006
Short stories
"Roses, Red, Room 416" in the anthology Black Silk - Warner Books, February 2002
"Bobby Q's Sauce" in the anthology Twilight Moods - Flowers in Bloom Publishing, September 2002
"Standing Room Only" in the anthology Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract - Washington Square Press, January 2004
"Appropriate Measures" - The Lo Zone, November 2014
Novella
"Three For The Road" in the anthology You Only Get Better - Kimani Press, March 2007
Nonfiction
Once Upon A Time In Compton (Tim Brennan & Robert Ladd with Lolita Files) - Amazon, April 2017
Filmography
Producer
Who Killed Tupac? (TV Mini-Series, 2017) - Producer
Baggage Claim (Film, 2013) - Associate Producer
Love in the Nick of Tyme (Video, 2007) - Associate Producer
References
External links
Lolita Files' website, "The Lo Zone"
Lolita Files at the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC)
Lolita Files Interview on Black Hollywood Live Conversations
USA Today: Online Book Videos Bring Words To Life
The Wall Street Journal: Chick Lit Goes 'Glam'
The Washington Post: Mysteries: Review of sex.lies.murder.fame (Under "Seminal Success")
Publishers Weekly Review of Tastes Like Chicken
NPR: All Things Considered: Lolita Files Discusses and Reads from Child of God
The Washington Post: Judged by Their Back Covers
The New York Times: Open a Book, and There's a Sister Inside
Sun-Sentinel: Far-fetched Tale That's Packed With Fun
Living people
African-American screenwriters
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
American women short story writers
University of Florida alumni
American women novelists
People from Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Year of birth missing (living people)
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American short story writers
Screenwriters from Florida
African-American novelists
20th-century African-American women
21st-century African-American women writers
21st-century African-American writers