The following information comes from the author's tribute website:
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. In 1991, he quit his sales job to write his first novel, Invisible Life, which, failing to find a publisher, he self-published and sold 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 E. Lynn Harris’s career as an author officially began.
Harris went on to become a ten-time New York Times bestselling author. His work included the memoir What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and the novels, A Love of My Own, Just as I Am, Any Way the Wind Blows (all three of which were named Novel of the Year by the Blackboard African American Bestsellers), I Say a Little Prayer, If This World Were Mine (which won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence), the classic Invisible Life, Just Too Good to Be True, and Basketball Jones.
Harris was a member of the Board of Directors of the Hurston/Wright Foundation and the Evidence Dance Company. He was also the founder of the E. Lynn Harris Better Days Foundation, a nonprofit company that provides support to aspiring writers and artists.
E. Lynn Harris passed away at the age of 54 in 2009, just months before the publication of his final novel, Mama Dearest.
New York City, you've been warned: Yancey Harrington Braxton is back. The ambitious singer and actress is fired up to move past her recent professional and personal setbacks -- including an explosive romance with NFL tight end John Basil Henderson -- and prove her talents are stronger than ever. After being out on tour, Yancey realizes what she really wants is to star in her own reality TV series, and she's even found a rich and well-connected lover to make it happen. There are, however, two women fierce enough to derail Yancey's plans with ambitions of their own: Madison B., a hot new bombshell taking the music industry by storm, and Ava Middlebrooks, who happens to be Yancey's own mama dearest.
Ava is out, about, and ready to reclaim her throne. Not even a stint in prison for attempted murder has curbed Ava's competitive nature, and it doesn't faze her in the least that her #1 rival is her own daughter. Ava is willing to do whatever it takes to make Yancey pay, including using Madison B. to turn Yancey's world upside-down by forcing her to confront the past...and making her comeback dreams more exciting and dangerous than she ever imagined.
Taking readers on a wild, passion-filled tour of the entertainment world, E. Lynn Harris's Mama Dearest delivers sensual thrills and electric plot twists -- with one unforgettable woman of radiant star power, sexual magnetism, and unapologetic ambition at the heart of the action.
I have not yet had the opportunity to read this book but I did want to participate in this day of honor for our author. Others are joining in too, and some may have a review of the book for you to read.
Drey’s Library: http://dreyslibrary.blogspot.com/
Found Not Lost: http://jmomfinds.amoores.com/
Rundpinne: http://www.rundpinne.blogspot.com/
My Own Little Corner of the World: http://molcotw.blogspot.com/
The Brain Lair: http://brainlair.blogspot.com/
My Reading Room: http://myreadingroom-crystal.blogspot.com/
That’s A Novel Idea: http://www.thatsanovelidea.blogspot.com/
Jeanne’s Ramblings: http://jeannesgifts.blogspot.com/
Cheryl’s Book Nook: http://cherylsbooknook.blogspot.com/
Just Another New Blog: http://justanothernewblog.blogspot.com/
My Book Addiction and More: http://mybookaddictionandmore.wordpress.com/
There may be a tour near you! Check it out here to see if you can join in a live tribute in a local bookstore near you. If you can't join in live, why not partake in a few of E. Lynn Harris's favorites found here.
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