Jacqueline Woodson

She
is an openly Lesbian woman with a lifelong partner and two children, a
daughter named Toshi Georgianna and a son named Jackson-Leroi.  Woodson
and her partner have known each other since they were young girls.


This is the ninety-sixth post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was,
during an important time of history.

Jacqueline
Woodson (b. 12 February 1963, in Columbus, Ohio) is an American author
who writes books targeted at children and adolescents. She is best known
for 'Miracle's Boys' which won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2001 and
her Newbery Honor titles 'After Tupac & D Foster', 'Feathers' and
'Show Way'. Her work is filled with strong African American themes,
generally aimed at a young adult audience. She is an openly Lesbian
woman with a lifelong partner and two children, a daughter named Toshi
Georgianna and a son named Jackson-Leroi.

Childhood and Youth

Jacqueline
Amanda Woodson was born to Jack and Mary Ann Woodson on February 12,
1963. Although she was born in Columbus, Ohio she and her younger
brother, who is biracial, grew up moving back and forth between South
Carolina and Brooklyn, NY between 1968 and 1973 until her grandmother
finally settled in chicken the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.[1] Her
mother was not wealthy, but her grandparents were, she felt the economic
differences each time she moved from one location to the other.[1] She
never felt that she truly belonged in either location, but began to
define herself as "outside of the world" even before she reached her
teens.

Education

In addition to her writing, Woodson has
also worked as a writing professor at Goddard College, Eugene Lang
College, Vermont College as well as a Writer-in-residence for the
National Book Foundation. She has also held positions as an editorial
assistant and a drama therapist for runaway children in New York, NY
She lives in Brooklyn, New York in a racially diverse neighborhood.
   
“[I
wanted] to write about communities that were familiar to me and people
that were familiar to me. I wanted to write about communities of color. I
wanted to write about girls. I wanted to write about friendship and all
of these things that I felt like were missing in a lot of the books
that I read as a child.”   


After college Woodson went to
work for Kirchoff/Wohlberg, a children's packaging company. She helped
to write the California standardized reading tests and caught the
attention of a Liza Pulitzer-Voges, a children's book agent at the same
company. Although the partnership didn't work out, it did get her first
manuscript out of a drawer. She then enrolled in Bunny Gable's
children's book writing class at the New School where Bebe Willoughby,
an editor at Delacorte heard a reading from Last Summer with Maizon and
requested the manuscript. Delacorte bought the manuscript, but
Willoughby left the company before editing it and so Wendy Lamb took
over and saw Woodson's first six books published.



Jacqueline
Woodson has, influenced many other writers, including An Na, who
credits her as being her first writing teacher. She also teaches teens
at the National Book Foundation's summer writing camp where she co-edits
the annual anthology of their combined work.

As an author,
Woodson is known for the detailed physical landscapes she writes into
each of her books. She places boundaries everywhere—social, economic,
physical, sexual, racial—then has her characters break through both the
physical and pychological boundaries to create a strong and emotional
story.



As a writer she consciously writes for a younger
audience. There are authors who write about adolescence or from a youths
point of view, but their work is intended for adult audiences. Woodson
writes about childhood and adolescence with an audience of youth in
mind. In an interview on National Public Radio she said, "I'm writing
about adolescents for adolescents. And I think the main difference is
when you're writing to a particular age group, especially a younger age
group, you're — the writing can't be as implicit. You're more in the
moment. They don't have the adult experience from which to look back. So
you're in the moment of being an adolescent...and the immediacy and the
urgency is very much on the page, because that's what it feels like to
be an adolescent. Everything is so important, so big, so traumatic. And
all of that has to be in place for them."




"Death
happens," Woodson told Samiya A. Bashir in Black Issues Book Review.
"Sexual abuse happens. Parents leave. These things happen every day and
people think that if they don't talk about it, then it will just go
away. But that's what makes it spread like the plague it is. People say
that they're censoring in the guise of protecting children, but if
they'd open their eyes they'd see that kids are exposed to this stuff
every day, and we need a venue by which to talk to them about it and
start a dialogue. My writing comes from this place, of wanting to change
the world. I feel like young people are the most open."

Critical response

Last
Summer with Maizon, Woodson's first book was praised by critics for
creating positive female characters and the touching portrayal of the
close eleven year-old friends. Reviewers also commented on its
convincing sense of place and vivid character relationships. The next
two books in the trilogy, Maizon at Blue Hill and Between Madison and
Palmetto, were also well received for their realistic characters and
strong writing style. The issues of self-esteem and identity are
addressed throughout the three books. A few reviewers felt that there
was a slight lack of focus as the trilogy touched lightly and quickly on
too many different problems in too few pages. The issues of self-esteem
and identity are addressed throughout the three books.
[edit]
Censorship


Bibliography of Illustrated Works
Martin Luther King, Jr. and His Birthday (nonfiction), illustrated by Floyd Cooper (1990)
Book Chase, illustrated by Steve Cieslawski (1994)
We Had a Picnic This Sunday Past, illustrated by Diane Greenseid (1997)
Sweet, Sweet Memory, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (2000)
The Other Side, illustrated by E.B. Lewis (2001)
Visiting Day, illustrated by James Ransome (2002)
Our Gracie Aunt, illustrated by Jon J. Muth (2002)
Coming on Home Soon, illustrated by E.B. Lewis (2003)
Show Way, illustrated by Hudson Talbott (2005)

Media Adaptations

Film

In 2002, filmmaker Spike Lee and others made Miracle's Boys into a mini-series.



FOR MORE ABOUT JACQUELINE WOODSON GO TO HER WEB SITE
WWW.JACQUELINEWOODSON.COM   AND WIKIPEDIA.COM