Meet the M.A.C.C.A. (Mainly African Canadian Caribbean Authors) and indie writers we’re proud to share.
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Alice Walker (b. 1944), one of the United States’ preeminent writers, is an award-winning author of novels, stories, essays, and poetry. In 1983, Walker became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award. Her other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.
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Asali Quamina is a seasoned leader, educator, and advocate for empowering children and women. For over 25 years, she has been the executive director of a nonprofit children’s centre where she has dedicated her life to creating supportive spaces for growth and learning.
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Aubrey was born in Georgetown Guyana and immigrated to Canada as a young boy. Aubrey worked with children for a number of years. He worked as a Youth Leader for the City of Toronto’s Parks and Recreational Programs and as a Community Youth Leader and mentor at one of Toronto’s largest evangelical churches. Sam & Rita Burke, Aubrey’s uncle and aunt were both educators and opened one of Canada’s largest African / Caribbean and Multicultural bookstores. That was where Aubrey fell in love with children’s literature. Through selling books to schools, childcare centres, teacher conferences, and community events Aubrey’s passion for children’s literature grew; He was already writing poetry and performing spoken word across North America then fell into storytelling naturally. “Fly Little Blackbird Fly”, was written in 1998 after Aubrey attended his first Harry Jerome Awards. There he was inspired to write a story that would touch, effect, empower and change lives positively. Aubrey, a man of many talents also wrote the lyrics to the song “Fly Fly Way Up High”, that is featured in “Fly Little Blackbird Fly.” In 2016 Aubrey launched a GoFundme campaign that went viral and was able to raise $67,000 in 7 days to bring a young lady home in an air ambulance to Canada from Trinidad after fallen 40 feet from a cliff. He has a huge heart and helps many people throughout the community. He is a radio advertising specialist and the owner of a Media Sales and Marketing company and enjoys helping clients grow their business. He started working in radio in 2001 and since then he has helped secure radio station licenses for a company and consulted various others. His media company also teams brands up with social influencers and writes jingles. In the Photos to the right, you will see renown poet: Lillian Allen, Actor: Ariana Williams (Madzie on Shadow Hunters) Actor: Nalini Ingrita. and Bishop TD Jakes
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Audra Townsend is a free-spirited British-born Jamaican Canadian Data Privacy Specialist and abstract mixed-media artist in Toronto, Ontario. As director and founder of Audra 3,0 Inc., Audra’s management consulting firm, she has provided privacy support for the work of Ontario’s Digital First Strategy and Digital First for Health Strategy.
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bell hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation’s leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader’s 100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life, she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is now a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than seventeen books, including All About Love: New Visions; Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.
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Eleanor Shearer is a mixed race writer from the UK. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate on the coast of Kent, so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea. As the granddaughter of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation, Eleanor has always been drawn to Caribbean history. Her first novel, RIVER SING ME HOME (Headline, UK & Berkley, USA) is inspired by the true stories of the brave woman who went looking for their stolen children after the abolition of slavery in 1834. The novel draws on her time spent in the Caribbean, visiting family in St Lucia and Barbados. It was also informed by her Master’s degree in Politics, where she focused on how slavery is remembered on the islands today. She travelled to the Caribbean and interviewed activists, historians and family members, and their reflections on what it really means to be free made her more determined than ever to bring the hidden stories of slavery to light.
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Helen Pearman Ziral, Phd, is a professor, purpose-driven wellness coach, facilitator, and author passionate about forgiveness, personal transformation, and holistic wellness. Her work inspires meaningful change and fosters lasting well-being.
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Herma Killenbeck was born in Jamaica and moved to Canada at twelve. Proudly identifying as Jamaican-Canadian, she built a successful career in the corporate world before taking early retirement to pursue her first loves: reading, writing, and exploring the magic of words.
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Hermia Martin Anthony is a sister, feminist, social justice activist, community organizer, and educator. Her latest work, Women In The St. Kitts Island Uprising, is a testament to her unwavering commitment to sharing empowering narratives from women.
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Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, is the author the critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns, and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns, tells the story of the Great Migration, a watershed in American history. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction, the Lynton History Prize from Harvard and Columbia universities, the Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize and was shortlisted for both the Pen-Galbraith Literary Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. WARMTH was named to more than 30 Best of the Year lists, including The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of the Year, Amazon’s 5 Best Books of the Year and Best of the Year lists in The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The Economist, among others. In 2019, TIME Magazine named Warmth to its list of the10 best books of the decade. Her second book, CASTE: The Origins of Our Discontents, explores the unrecognized hierarchy in America, its history and its consequences. Caste became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, was the 2020 summer/fall selection for Oprah’s Book Club and was longlisted for the National Book Award. It was named to more best of the year lists than any other work of nonfiction. TIME named it the No. 1 nonfiction book of 2020. Publishers Marketplace named it the book of the year across all genres. In 2021, it was the most borrowed nonfiction library book in the United States, according to Quartz Magazine. Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times in 1994, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer and the first African-American to win for individual reporting. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the National Humanities Medal for “championing the stories of an unsung history.” She has appeared on national programs such as “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” CBS’s “60 Minutes,” NBC’s “Nightly News,” “The PBS News Hour,” MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” NPR’s “On Being with Krista Tippett,” the BBC and others. She has taught at Princeton, Emory and Boston universities and has lectured at more than 200 other colleges and universities across the U.S. and in Europe and Asia.
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With more than 8 million books in print, Iyanla Vanzant has truly established a dedicated fan base. Iyanla’s path to success took her through a multitude of life-changing experiences that shaped the profound insights she eagerly shares with others. A neglected, overweight, sexually abused child who was shuttled from one family to another, she became a teenage mother on welfare living in the projects of a major urban city. Vanzant took control of her life when she walked out of her second abusive marriage and entered Medgar Evers College in New York and then the City University of New York Law School. She moved to Philadelphia with her children and became a public defender for three years. Then she eventually became an ordained minister, who was committed to a message based on the principles of divine power and self-determination. Iyanla combined her professional skills with her life’s lessons and embarked on a writing and speaking career. Her mass appeal is evident in her overwhelming success as an author. In the Meantime was a #1 New York Times bestseller, where it spent 20 weeks on the list, and she has had numerous other major bestsellers. As a nationally recognized speaker she has sold out such prestigious venues as New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center, Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Atlanta’s Civic Center, and the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Vanzant is also familiar to the daytime TV audience from her role as a regular contributor on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Acclaimed journalist and producer Barbara Walters recognized Vanzant’s extraordinary appeal, seeing in her a “breakaway talent” with the potential for huge success in daytime television. With Walters and partner Bill Geddie on board to executive produce, Buena Vista Productions to develop the show, and Buena Vista Television as distributor, the road to Iyanla was forged. Vanzant has received numerous accolades for her work. In 1992 Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley named October 21st “Tapping the Power Within Day” in honor of a workshop she presented in that city for African-American women. In 1994, the National Association of Equal Opportunity in Education, an organization comprised of the presidents and administrators of the 117 predominantly Black colleges in the United States named her Alumni of the Year. She also was awarded an “Oni” by the International Congress of Black Women as one of the nation’s unsung heroes, and she served as the national spokesperson for Literacy Volunteers of America in 1998. In 1999 she was listed among the 100 Most Influential African-Americans by Ebony magazine. Later that year, she was awarded the 31st NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work, Non-Fiction” for Yesterday I Cried. She also earned her first Honorary Doctorate degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from the City University of New York, Medgar Evars College. In 2000, she earned her second honorary degree, Doctor of Divinity, from the Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, Ebony has named her one of their “55 Most Intriguing People,” Vibe magazine tabbed her one of “100 Leaders of the New Millennium” and Newsweek recently included her as one of the “Women of the New Century.” The mother of three and grandmother of four, Vanzant lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband Adeyemi and Mr. Coco, their cat.
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Jayne Allen (pen name), in her life outside of writing, is a serial entrepreneur, Harvard-trained attorney, and engineer. She dabbles in standup comedy, tries to learn one new thing a week, and relishes laughter and champagne bubbles with her girlfriends and family. Originally from Detroit, when not writing “chocolate chick lit with a conscience,” she’s spending time with her friends and family, keeping one ear open for her next saucy tale
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JULIA FINLEY MOSCA is a copywriter and former journalist who spent more than a decade in Hollywood crafting messages for money. After working with such recognizable brands as Entertainment Tonight, Yahoo!, American Greetings, and JibJab, she landed her most rewarding job yet―mom to one ferociously curious and spunky little girl. The Amazing Scientists series marks Mosca’s debut into the magical world of children’s books.
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I have always been interested in folk art from around the world, Indian miniatures, Mexican ceramics, fabrics, Chagall, Matisse, children’s art, and primitive painting, and I love to paint and experiment with pattern, texture, collage and color. The careers I’ve had–as a costume designer, a quilt maker, a fabric artist, and a graphic designer–have taken all these interests into account. Looking back, I can see that these passions and career choices have played a large part in influencing me to become a children’s book author and illustrator. But most importantly, it was after my husband and I adopted our daughter from Guatemala that I was inspired to do a children’s book for her. My first book, Over the Moon, was the story of that magical experience of welcoming our daughter Lena into our lives. I painted, I drew, I collaged, and I wrote, and after working very hard… a beautiful book was born! Twenty-two books later, my daughter–now fourteen years old–still is an inspiration for me. I am fascinated by babies and little kids. The simplest words and gestures can make them laugh. Sometimes standing in line at the supermarket and watching kids in grocery carts, my best ideas are born. I am fascinated by people from all over the world and what they look like and how they live and the differences that make us all unique. When an idea pops into my head I ask these questions: Will a child want to read this book? Will a parent want to read this book with their child? Will this book make a parent and child feel something? Is there something visual here that will hold a child’s interest? Will a child see something in a different way after reading this book? If the answer is yes, then I know I’m on the right track. I am very lucky to get to do what I do. Everyday I go into my studio and have fun. Don’t get me wrong, some days are very frustrating. Sometimes the colors are all wrong and the words don’t sound right. But after I work at it for a while…and try to do it a different way…and think…and change the words or colors…and try some more…suddenly, there it is–a great page of writing, or a great illustration. And nothing is more satisfying than that.
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Dr. Kelly Turner, PhD is a researcher, lecturer, and consultant in the field of integrative oncology. Her specialized research focus is the Radical Remission of cancer, which is a remission that occurs either in the absence of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. Her research is summarized in her upcoming book RADICAL REMISSION (HarperOne, March 18, 2014), available wherever books and e-books are sold. Dr. Turner has a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. When she’s not studying incredible cases of healing, you’ll find her either cozying up in Brooklyn with her family, waterskiing, or screenwriting.
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Murphy Browne is an African woman born in South America and grew up in an African-centered community where the elders told stories about their ancestors and culture before the Maafa. She hosts two weekly radio programs at www.radioregent.com and is a retired African Heritage instructor with the Toronto District School Board.
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Nancy Fraser is a college professor whose work focuses on the intersection of race, gender, and education, particularly within Caribbean families. Her favourite quote is “If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it” (Zora Neale Hurston).
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Pauline Taylor – Bloomfield is a retired elementary school teacher and author of the book, What Makes the World Beautiful? Pauline enjoys traveling and writing.
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QUEEN AFUA is a NY Times best selling author, holistic health practitioner and wellness coach for more than 5 decades and a pioneer in the green foods movement. She is the author of 5 best selling books, the creator of the Heal Thyself product line and Founder of the Queen Afua Wellness Institute. She has devoted her life to fighting diseases by teaching people how to understand and utilize the power of food, self-care, and holistic healthy choices as an empowering lifestyle. A native of Brooklyn, NY, Queen Afua has inspired over 1,000,000 women, men and children throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe with her workshops, books, products, and presentations. Her work has been acknowledged by thousands of industry peers, A-list entertainers, government officials & world leaders. Her message of “Liberation Through Purification” has been presented locally and internationally in all forms of media, in hospitals, at colleges and universities, via satellite around the world, as well as at NASA. Her mission has always been to teach the art, science and joy of natural living. Her acknowledgements include but are not limited to: Amazon Bookstore Top Selling Author, Essence Magazine Bestselling Author, Citation from the City Council of Philadelphia, Honored with Queen Afua Day (June 27th) by fmr Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Honorable Recognitions from the cities of Los Angeles and Brooklyn (“First Family of Wellness” by fmr Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams), Certificates of Recognition & Appreciation from Senator Barbara Boxer (CA), Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA), Congressman Al Green (TX), and Senator Shirley Kitchen (PA); she is also a guest contributor in Healthy At Last by Mayor Eric Adams.
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My name is Rahma Mohamed, and I was born and raised in Hargeisa, Somaliland. At the age of eight, my family immigrated to Canada. We arrived in Quebec, where I attended my first formal school in French. The first few years were challenging, I experienced bullying due to me being the only Black Muslim girl in my class and my inability to speak the language. But eventually, I would be the first to graduate from University in my family, having mastered both French and English. Once I became a mother, I set out to self-publish children’s books to encourage youth to be proud of their uniqueness by celebrating diversity. Reflecting on my struggles of growing up in a foreign country, I became determined to offer books centered on characters that are Muslim and with African roots. I firmly believe that children need to be able to identify themselves in the book they read to enhance their self-confidence as well as bolster their sense of pride. I write under the pen name RahmaRodaah which is my first name and my middle name combined. I now juggle the joys of motherhood as I chase my four kids, homeschooling, and finally, my writing, which happens during nap times, after bedtime or any other moment I can find.
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Raymond A. Winbush, Ph.D. is the Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University. He received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Oakwood College in Alabama and received a fellowship to attend the University of Chicago, where he earned both his master’s degree and Ph.D. in psychology. He has taught at Oakwood College, Alabama A&M, Vanderbilt University, and Fisk University. He is the recipient of numerous grants, including one from the Kellogg Foundation to establish a “National Dialogue on Race.” He is the author of The Warrior Method: A Parents’ Guide to Rearing Healthy Black Boys, the former treasurer and executive board member of the National Council of Black Studies, and is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Black Studies. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Sam & Rita Burke have been educators for over 4 decades. Their life’s mission is to curate and connect books to people and people to books. In 1994, they started an Afrocentric bookstore in Toronto, Canada. The bookstore morphed into a community hub, for authors, artists, and events for the enrichment of Toronto’s Black and Caribbean community. Sam & Rita believe that their bookshelves tell the Black experience authentically and accurately.
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According to NBC News, Tia Williams “is a writer’s writer with a fashionista twist.” She began her career as a beauty editor (Elle, Glamour, Essence) – and in 2003, pioneered beauty blogging with her site, Shake Your Beauty. She’s the author of The Accidental Diva, the It Chicks series, and The Perfect Find – which was adapted to a Netflix film starring Gabrielle Union. Her latest novel, Seven Days in June, was an instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller, as well as Reese’s Book Club pick for June 2021 – and a TV series adaptation is in development with Will Packer Productions. Her upcoming novel, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, will publish on Feb. 6, 2024. Tia lives with her daughter and husband in Brooklyn.
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Tricia Hersey is a Chicago native with over 20 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance and reparations by curating spaces for the community to rest via community rest activations, immersive workshops, performance art installations, and social media. Her research interests include Black liberation theology, womanism, somatics, and cultural trauma. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Rest is Resistance which published in October 2022.
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Hello! I’m Virtuous, best-selling author and CEO of Vncbooks Publishing Company. Born in the United States but raised in Ghana, West Africa, I love and embrace both cultures. As an alumna of Rutgers University, my life profession has always been geared towards serving children and families. My desire is to cater to children especially the ones in the Inner City by teaching and mentoring them to be their very best. Writing is my passion because it allows me to educate and inspire. Fun fact: I love dancing! I have taught lyrical dance over the years. For nearly 15 years I had dreamt of becoming a children’s author. In 2019 that dream became a realty and the Animalsville series was born Since the pandemic, I provide FREE story and activity times Live on my Facebook page and YouTube channel. Another fun fact I have a pet bunny name “Snow”
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