Joyce Carol Thomas

Joyce Carol Thomas (May 25, 1938 – August 13, 2016) was an African-American poet, playwright, motivational speaker, and author of more than 30 children's books.Prize-winning author Joyce Carol Thomas dead at 78 

Thomas was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, the fifth of nine children in a family of cotton pickers. In 1948 the family moved to Tracy, California, to pick vegetables. She learned Spanish from Mexican migrant workers and earned a B.A. in Spanish from San Jose State University. She took night classes in education at Stanford University, while raising four children, and received a master's degree in 1967.

For her 1982 novel Marked by Fire, Thomas won a National Book Award for Young People's Literature|National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback)
"National Book Awards – 1983" . National Book Foundation.
and an American Book Award.
Thomas has been one of three to five finalists for the Coretta Scott King Award three times, in 1984 for Bright Shadow, in 1994 for Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, and in 2009 for The Blacker the Berry in 2009. Part of the American Library Association program, every year the King Award honors the "most distinguished portrayal of African American experience in literature for children or teens"."Coretta Scott King Book Award – All Recipients, 1970–Present". American Library Association (ALA).
  "About the Coretta Scott King Book Awards". ALA. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
She also received a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year Award and an Outstanding Woman of the 20th Century Award.

She lived in Berkeley, California.

 Related pages 
List of poets from North America

References

"Joyce Carol Thomas".Tennessee Authors. The University of Tennessee. Archived 2011-01-16. Retrieved 2013-11-24.

Other websites

Write TV Public Television Interview with Joyce Carol Thomas 

Category:1938 births
Category:2016 deaths
Category:Writers from Oklahoma
Category:Children's writers
Category:African-American writers
Category:American poets