Maryam Wells

**Maryam Wells** is an American author, cosmetologist, and salon owner. She has written and published over 50 books, and is best known for popular teen series, *All About Us*, *The Fabulous Jenkins Girls*, and *Teen Witch of Santa Mira*. Her career as a hairdresser inspired two novel series around the beauty world, *L.A. Hair Goddess* and its spin-off series *Tress It Up*! and her family inspired the *Sisterly Love* series.

## Early Life

Wells graduated from Susan Miller Dorsey High School in 2008. She attended Los Angeles Trade Technical College for a shot time, but dropped out due to transportation problems. After her father's death from cancer, she enrolled at Los Angeles City College to study acting and theatre. However, after a few class sessions, Wells became disinterested in her choice and left City College. She decided to return to Trade Tech, but she struggled to survive Freshman Cosmetology due to an foot injury and being dropped due to not having a cosmetology kit. In 2019, she left Trade Tech to attend cosmetology school with flexible hours, at the same time, she began a on-location beauty service in order to support herself. In 2020, she planned to enroll at another beauty
college, but put it on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. A year later, in 2021, she attended Universal College of Beauty, in Leimert Park, a neighborhood in her old neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, where she studied her craft as a hairdresser. She continued to renew her cosmetology license every year to maintain her status as a hairdresser.

## Career

In 2011, after seeing an old NBC teen show "*All About Us*" which lasted one season, Wells believed the series had potential and decided to turn the series into a teen novel series, filled with things from Wells's own experience. Then she saw another NBC series that was also short-lived and she made it into a novel series. The novel version of it deal with teenage identical twin girls causing trouble and dealing with teen social issues.

In late 2015, Wells created *Sisterly Love* about the lives and the love of three young African-American women, who were also sisters. The three main characters were based on Wells' mother and her two aunts (her mother's older and younger sisters). Wells spend her time in her old neighborhood, Baldwin Hills to write the stories. She also created *L.A. Hair Goddess*, about a young cosmetologist who moves to Downtown L.A. and gets a job as a hairdresser as a top trendy beauty salon. It is followed by its spin-off, *Tress It Up*! about two sisters running a hair salon in an fictional California town, two hours from Los Angeles after their mother retires from hairdressing. Tress It Up! featured many storylines including Jessica Samuels' death from a car crash; Marissa Hughes' crisis with a ex, Megan Benson's forced relationship with her mother's ex and having an abortion, and Darcy Payne losing her second child due to an fatal condition.

In 2019, she created *The Sisters of Summer Cove*, but struggled with the series' premise. But she changed the title to *Hollywood Sisters* with a premise about four sisters who are performers living in Hollywood. Their mother is a TV and Film actress. Some of the characters' storylines were based on real-life performers' struggles.