E Lynn Harris Biography
E. Lynn Harris was born in Flint, Michigan and
raised, along with three sisters, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where he was the school's first black
yearbook editor, the first black male Razorbacks cheerleader, and the president
of his fraternity. He graduated with honors with a degree in journalism.
Harris sold computers for IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and AT&T for thirteen years
while living in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. He finally quit his sales
job to write his first novel, Invisible Life, and, failing to find a
publisher, he published it himself in 1991 and sold it mostly at black-owned
bookstores, beauty salons, and book clubs before he was "discovered" by Anchor
Books. Anchor published Invisible Life as a trade paperback in 1994,
and thus his career as an author officially began.
Invisible Life was followed by Just As I Am (1994), And This
Too Shall Pass (1996), If This World Were Mine (1997), Abide with
Me (1999), Not A Day Goes By (2000), Any Way the Wind Blows
(2001), A Love of My Own (2002), I Say A Little Prayer (2006) and
Just Too Good To Be True (2008), all published by Doubleday. All ten of
Harris's novels have hit the New York Times bestseller list, and they
have also appeared on the bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal,
Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, and
Los Angeles Times. In 2003, Harris published his first work of nonfiction, a
memoir entitled What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, which was also a
New York Times bestseller. Today, there are more than four million copies of
his books in print, and his latest, Basketball Jones, was released in
January 2009.
Harris's writing has also appeared in Essence, Washington Post Sunday
Magazine, and Sports Illustrated, as well as in the award-winning
anthology Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America, Go The Way Your
Blood Beats. His novella, "Money Can't Buy Me Love" was published in
Got To Be Real: Four Original Love Stories. Freedom in This Village,
a collection of short stories edited by Harris, was released in the fall of
2004. His short fiction appeared in Gumbo: A Celebration of African American
Writers (Harlem Moon), a 2002 collection he edited with writer Marita
Golden.
Harris won numerous accolades and prizes for his work. Just As I Am was
awarded the Novel of the Year Prize by the Blackboard African-American
Bestsellers, Inc. If This World Were Mine was nominated for a NAACP
Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Abide
with Me was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award. His anthology
Freedom in this Village won the Lambda Literary Award in 2005. In 1999, the
University of Arkansas honored Harris with a Citation of Distinguished Alumni
for outstanding professional achievement, and in October 2000 he was inducted
into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. He was also named to Ebony's
"Most Intriguing Blacks" list, Out Magazine's "Out 100" list, New
York Magazine's "Gay Power 101" list, and Savoy's "100 Leaders and
Heroes in Black America" list. Other honors have included the Sprague Todes
Literary Award, the Harvey Milk Honorary Diploma, and The Silas Hunt Award for
Outstanding Achievement from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Harris was a member of the Board of Directors of the Hurston/Wright Foundation
and the Evidence Dance Company. He also founded the E. Lynn Harris Better Days
Foundation, a nonprofit company that provides support to aspiring writers and
artists.
A popular college lecturer, Harris divided his time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Fayetteville, Arkansas until his death in July
2009 at the age of 54.
This biography was last updated on 07/24/2009.
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