Evelyn Coleman's
BIO
Evelyn Coleman’s children’s books, White Socks Only, The Glass Bottle Tree, The Foot Warmer and the Crow The Riches of Oseola McCarty and To Be a Drum have received praise and recognition including these honors: Parents Choice Honor Book; American Booksellers Association’s Pick of the Lists; the Smithsonian Most Outstanding Children’s Book Title; Publisher’s Weekly’s Cuffie Award; Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies; selected as Children’s Book of the Year; Texas Blue Bonnet List; Society of School Librarians International Honor Book; a Carter G. Woodson Honor Book; Stepping Stones Honor Award; nominated for Children’s Crown Award and The Young Hoosier Book Award; The Horn Book recommended title and many other public school lists. The film, White Socks Only from Phoenix Films produced by Academy Award winning Barbara Bryant and adapted by Coleman won the Bronze Award at the Worldfest Houston Film Festival. Her children’s books are apart of the Screen Actor’s Guild’s Book Pal’s National Campaigns and have been a part of the Anti-Defamation League and Barnes & Noble’s Close the Book on Hate Campaign. And her book, American Girl Shadows on Society Hill was chosen for Barnes & Noble’s summer reading program.
Her young adult & juvenile books include, Shadows on Society Hill, American Girl, nominated for an Edgar Award, Freedom Train, Simon & Schuster, a Parents’ Choice Recommended book, Born in Sin, Atheneum, a Junior Library Guild selection; Circle of Fire and Mystery of the Dark Tower, both American Girl History Mysteries. Coleman’s children’s short stories appear in Make Me Over by Marilyn Singer and Scholastic’s Read and Rise Magazine.
Coleman’s adult short stories and essays have been included in Proverbs for the People, an anthology edited by Tracy Price Thompson & TaRessa Stovall, shades of black: Crime & Mysteries by African American Writers, edited by Eleanor Taylor Bland; Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood, edited by Cecelie Berry; Men We Cherish, edited by Brooke Stephens. Coleman’s adult fiction and non-fiction have also appeared in Essence, Black Enterprise, Accent On Living, Jive, Southern Exposure, Catalyst Literary Magazine, The Quarterly Black Review, the Utne Reader and numerous newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal & Constitution.
What a Woman’s Gotta Do, Evelyn Coleman’s adult thriller garnered rave reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, the Chicago Tribune, Chronicle for Higher Learning and numerous other publications. Mimi Leder, Academy award winning director of the movies, Deep Impact and The Peacemaker optioned What a Woman’s Gotta Do for a feature film.
Coleman was recently the recipient of Dekalb Public Library’s Trail Blazer Award. She is the recipient of the 38th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Award, Children/Young Adult Literature, 2002 King Baudouin /Belgium Cultural Exchange Fellowship, Honored 2003 by the Black & Latino Caucus of the NCTE, 2000 Atlanta Mayor’s Fellowship, the North Carolina’s Arts Council’s Fiction Fellowship and was honored at the AmiGals Literary Retreat as Author of the Year. Coleman is the past President of the Southeast Region, Mystery Writers of America; and a former member of Sisters in Crime, Novelists, Inc.; Author’s Guild; Society of Children’s Book Writers &Illustrators; Children’s Literature Association. Coleman has been a past-certified instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature, and for thirteen years, she was a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and stress management trainer.
Coleman is a well sought after lecturer, teacher and workshop leader in the U.S. and abroad. Coleman was a guest speaker along with Jane Yolen, Philip Pullman and others at the Magic Carper International Perspective Conference at the University of Leeds, sponsored by the Society of Children's Authors & Illustrators, UK.
All of her books, including Born in Sin, Circle of Fire, Mystery of the Dark Tower, The Foot Warmer and the Crow, The Glass Bottle Tree, To Be a Drum, The Riches of Oseola McCarty and White Socks Only have garnered praise and recognition including these honors: BIO