Remembering Gloria Naylor on Her Birthday

On this day in 1950, award-winning author Gloria Naylor was born in New York City. Here at HBW we continue to celebrate her life, memory, and contributions to Black writing. Here's a starter Gloria Naylor source list for you.

Conversations and Critical Concepts
A Conversation: Naylor, Gloria and Morrison, Toni. The Southern Review 21.3. (Jul 1, 1985): 567.

A Tribute to Gloria Naylor: Teacher of Black Feminism

Ashford, Tomeiko R. Gloria Naylor on Black Spirituality: An Interview. MELUS. Vol. 30, No. 4, Home: Forged or Forged? (Winter, 2005), pp. 73-87.

Brondum, Lene. "'The Persistence of Tradition': The Retelling of Sea Islands Culture in Works by Julie Dash, Gloria Naylor, and Paule Marshall." Black Imagination and the Middle Passage (1999): 153-163.

Butts, Tracy. Gloria Naylor: A Selected Bibliography. Callaloo. Vol. 23, No. 4 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 1497-1512

Cox, Karen Castellucci. Magic and Memory in the Contemporary Story Cycle: Gloria Naylor and Louise Erdrich. College English. Vol. 60, No. 2 (Feb., 1998), pp. 150-172

Donlon, Jocelyn Hazelwood. Hearing Is Believing: Southern Racial Communities and Strategies of Story-Listening in Gloria Naylor and Lee Smith. Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 16-35.

Engles, T. "African American Whiteness in Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills." African American Review, vol. 43 no. 4, 2009, pp. 661-679.

Harris, Trudier. The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller's Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan. University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. Toward a New Order: Shakespeare, Morrison, and Gloria Naylor's Mama Day. MELUS. Vol. 19, No. 3, Intertextualities (Autumn, 1994), pp. 75-90.

Levy, Helen Fiddyment. Fiction of the Home Place: Jewett, Cather, Glasgow, Porter, Welty, and Naylor. Univ Pr of Mississippi, 1992.

Naylor, Gloria, and Maxine Lavon Montgomery. Conversations with Gloria Naylor. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Prahlad, Sw. Anand. 1998. "All chickens come home to roost: The function of proverbs in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day." Proverbium, 15: 265-282.

Puhr, Kathleen M. Healers in Gloria Naylor's Fiction. Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. 518-527.

Stave, Shirley A. Gloria Naylor: strategy and technique, magic and myth. Associated University Presse, 2001.

Storhoff, Gary. "The Only Voice is Your Own": Gloria Naylor's Revision of The Tempest. African American Review. Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 35-45.

Ward, Catherine C. and Gloria Naylor. Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills: A Modern "Inferno". Contemporary Literature. Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 67-81.

Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Gloria Naylor. Univ of South Carolina Press, 1999.

Why George Has to Die: Gloria Naylor's Mama Day and the Myth of the Goddess

Wilson, Charles E. Gloria Naylor: a critical companion. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001

Remembering Gloria Naylor
Gloria Naylor, 'The Women Of Brewster Place' Author, Dies At 66

Gloria Naylor, Whose Honored Novel Was Set in a Housing Project, Dies at 66

Remembering Gloria Naylor

Rest in Power: Gloria Naylor, Author of ‘The Women of Brewster Place,’ Has Died


In Her Own Words
The Women of Brewster Place (1982)

Linden Hills (1985)

The Meanings of a Word (1986)

Mama Day (1988)

Bailey's Cafe (1992)

Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present (editor)(1994)

The Men of Brewster Place (1998)

1996 (2005)

From the HBW Archives: "Lest We Forget" | MLK Day 2017

Today and everyday we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. You can explore more resources at the King Center digital archives.

This poster was gifted to HBW by photojournalist Ernest Withers of his historic photographs of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. Please explore more of his life and legacy at the Panopticon Gallery.

"Black is Beautiful"

Courtesy of Phil Michael

"What's in Your Life's Blueprint?" (1967)

Courtesy of Beacon Press

"I've Been to the Mountaintop" (1968)

Courtesy of Matthew Siegfried

Happy New Year from the Project on the History of Black Writing

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