If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

Nine Years Under is a sparkling debut--- brimming with love and bursting with life. Booker's Baltimore is equal parts The Wire and The Cosby show. She doesn't shrink from the realities of life in an inner city funeral home, but she is also a loving witness, documenting the big hearted community that takes care of its own. Told with compassion, wit, and good old fashioned story telling, Sheri Booker gives us unforgettable characters who will make you laugh right up until they break your heart.

This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.

My first novel, Leaving Atlanta, took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.