Jewell Parker Rhodes

Jewell Parker Rhodes was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1954. She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she earned a B.A. in Drama Criticism, an M.A. in English, and a D.A. in Creative Writing. Her first novel, Voodoo Dreams (1993), was a work of historical fiction for adults about Marie Laveau (1801­–1881), a free Black woman and renowned Voodoo practitioner born in New Orleans, Louisiana during slavery. In addition to two more free-standing novels for adults, Rhodes subsequently published a trio of mystery novels, Season (2005), Moon (2008), and Hurricane (2011), about Marie Leveau’s fictional great-granddaughter. Rhodes has also authored novels for children. Her first children’s novel, Ninth Ward (2010), about a 12-year-old girl named Lanesha living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, was a Coretta Scott King Honor Title in 2011 (the Coretta Scott King Award honors children’s and young-adult novels by African-American authors). Rhodes’s fifth novel for children, Ghost Boys (2018), about a 12-year-old Black boy named Jerome shot to death by a white police officer, won many awards, including the We Need Diverse Books 2019 Walter Award (Young Readers Category). Parents and at least one law enforcement officer have since sought to ban the book in a few schools in Florida, California, and Texas. Jewell Parker Rhodes is currently a professor at Arizona State University and the founding director of ASU’s creative writing center.