Happy birthday Nelson George! Born September 1, Nelson George is an established African American author and filmmaker with a passion for telling stories of the black experience in America. George is the author of several ground breaking histories of African American music, including Where Did Our Love Go: the Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, The Death of Rhythm & Blues, Hip Hop America and The Hippest Trip in America:Soul Train. He authored a few novels including Urban Romance.
Happy birthday Rita Dove! Born August 28, Rita Frances Dove is an African American poet and essayist. She served as poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, becoming the first African American appointed to the position after it was established in 1986. In 1987, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poetry, Thomas and Beulah. Other notable works:
Happy birthday Gary Phillips! Born August 24, Gary Phillips is an African American writer, editor, and community activist whose 1994 novel Violent Spring is considered a classic work of crime fiction and one of the essential crime novels about Los Angeles. His notable books are:
Happy birthday Mat Johnson! Born August 19, Mat Johnson is an African American fiction writer who works in both prose and the comics format. In 2007, he was named the first USA James Baldwin Fellow by United States Artists. Here are a few of his notable works:
Heavenly birthday wishes, Wallace Thurman! Born August 16, 1902, Wallace Thurman was an African-American editor, critic, novelist, and playwright associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He was well known for his novel, The Blacker the Berry. He died in 1934. Some other works he authored:
Happy birthday Diane McKinney-Whetstone! Born August 14, Diane McKinney-Whetstone is an African American author of eight novels. Her latest novel, Family spirit was published August, 2025. She mines the city of Philadelphia for her material. The blocks and neighborhoods themselves become characters as she tells stories of everyday people existing in families and communities; characters faltering, yielding to their desires, falling, fighting, climbing, reaching for their better selves. Twice awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction, she is also a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.
Happy birthday Jabari Asim! Born August 11, Jabari Asim is an African American author, poet, playwright, and professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He has authored six adult books and nine children books.
Belated happy birthday S. A. Cosby! Born August 4, Shawn Andre Cosby is an African American author of Southern noir crime fiction. He resides in Gloucester, Virginia on the York River. Cosby has published five crime novels: My Darkest Prayer, Blacktop Wasteland, Razorblade Tears, All the Sinners Bleed, and King of Ashes.
Belated happy birthday Farai Chideya! Born July 27, Farai Chideya is an African American novelist, multimedia journalist, and radio host. Farai states: “I listen critically to stories about our human journey, and track the data on people, governments, and our global society.” Here are a few of her works:
Heavenly belated birthday wishes Chester Himes! Born July 29, 1909, Chester Himes Chester Bomar Himes was an African American writer. His works, some of which have been filmed, include If He Hollers Let Him Go, published in 1945, and Cotton Comes to Harlem. He died in 1984.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 