Special News Brief
Pine Lake Celebrates Valerie Boyd
During Black History Month
Most of us in Pine Lake were not aware that we had a Black History luminary living in our tiny city. Valerie Boyd was a journalist, writer, editor and educator who lived in our community from 2017 until February 12, 2022, when she lost her battle with cancer at the tragically young age of 58.
Valerie was elected to the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in the Fall of 2021 and was inducted posthumously in 2022. In 2017, she received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities. She was introduced at that ceremony by friend and former student Monica Pearson (MA ’14), who spoke of Boyd as a “history maker in the state and around the world”. In her nomination letter, Alice Walker said: “Talking with her is akin to standing before a mirror, but one that shows not only yourself, but all the surrounding possibilities as she dives straight for the heart of the image and view.
In 2003, Valerie’s biography Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston was published to critical acclaim and awards, including a Southern Book Award, an American Library Association’s Notable Book Award and a Georgia Author of the Year Award in nonfiction. Her subject, Zora Neale Hurston, is widely considered one of the most important African American writers of the 20th century. She was a vibrant part of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, alongside such notable creatives as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker.
Valerie started teaching at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism in 2004, and in 2007 she was named the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence. In 2015 she founded the MFA Program in Narrative Nonfiction. “She built a supportive, loving community of mid-career journalists looking to rediscover their voice.”
She spent her last several years editing the journals of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker and a collection of short essays and poems by notable Black writers. This resulted in her final two books, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, published by Simon and Schuster in April 2022, and Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic, published by Lookout Books in November of 2022.
Valerie,
We wish we had had more time to get to know you, but we are thankful that you could spend your last years in our peaceful and loving community. We are happy for all the people that you taught and mentored and loved. Even though you are now gone from this earth, we feel touched by you still.
Because of your introduction to and love of Pine Lake your sistarfriends Annette Lawrence, gina Breedlove, and nívea castro purchased homes and now live in Pine Lake.
We thank you,
Your Pine Lake Community
Find Out More
Articles by Valerie:
Finding Southern Comfort – Oxford American - Article written by Valerie in 1999, when she was living in Stone Mountain, describing its racist history and changes through the years from the perspective of a “young black feminist writer”.
The Great Call – Oxford American - Follow up article that she wrote in 2020 after moving to Pine Lake.
About the Books:
Remembering Zora - Northwestern Magazine Writing a biography of the late African American author Zora Neale Hurston was a spiritual quest for Valerie Boyd.
Discussion of Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker - YouTube - Sponsored by Charis Circle, featuring Alice Walker and Pearl Cleage
Memorials and Obituaries:
A Community Celebration of Valerie Boyd – Memorial program lovingly prepared by Valerie’s closest friends and family.
Remembering Valerie Boyd - Grady College – UGA
Acclaimed Georgia Author Valerie Boyd Dies at 58 – Decaturish
Valerie Boyd, acclaimed Zora Neale Hurston biographer, dies at 58 - AJC
Valerie Boyd: A Remembrance – Atlanta Magazine - Pearl Cleage remembers their decades of friendship.
Valerie Boyd, acclaimed biographer of Zora Neale Hurston, dies at 58 – Washington Post
Valerie Boyd, Zora Neale Hurston biographer, dies at 58 – LA Times
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