Evelyn C. White

Last updated
Evelyn C. White
Born1954 (age 68–69)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Occupation
  • Writer
  • editor
  • journalist
  • guest speaker
NationalityAmerican
Education
Alma mater Harvard University
Genre
Notable works
  • Black Women's Health Book
  • Alice Walker: A Life

Evelyn Corliss White (born March 29, 1954) [1] is an American writer and editor. Her books include the collection Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves and the biography Alice Walker: A Life.

Contents

Early life and education

Evelyn C. White was born on March 29, 1954 in Chicago, Illinois to Amanda Cantrells and Andrew S. White. She was one of five siblings. [2] [3] White grew up in a working class neighborhood in Gary, Indiana and attended Alain L Locke Elementary School. [2] [3]

After graduating from Wellesley College in 1976, she worked for a theatre company in Denmark. Returning to the United States, she studied theatre at the University of Washington and began writing professionally while living in Seattle. She graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1985. [3] [4]

In 1991, White earned a Master's degree in public administration from Harvard University. [3]

Career

White joined the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle in the mid-1980s. [5] She published her first two books, Chain, Chain, Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships and Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves, with Seal Press, a small feminist press based in Seattle, Washington. [6]

Black Women's Health Book included chapters from Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. [7] Writing for the New York Times , Linda Villarosa observed that some of the book's topics were "unavoidably depressing" but noted that "when the essays hit home, they hit hard". [8] Publishers Weekly summarized the book's 41 different writings as covering "the vast spectrum of the black women's health experience as patient, healer and witness". [9] In the San Francisco Chronicle Patricia Holt concluded that the book "breaks the silence, bursts the taboos, and mends many hearts along the way". [10]

While White was teaching at a writing center in Oregon, one of her students brought her into contact with the novelist Alice Walker, who had read newspaper articles that White had written for the San Francisco Chronicle . [2] After a decade of White's work on Walker's biography, Alice Walker: A Life was published by Norton in 2004, with The New York Times calling it a "rich, complex story" [11] and Publishers Weekly describing it as a "vibrant narrative". [12]

White currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and has contributed to publications like The Coast , The Nova Scotia Advocate, Halifax Examiner . [13]

Bibliography

Honors

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References

  1. ↑ "White, Evelyn C. 1954– | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  2. 1 2 3 Dubno Shevin, Natalia (August 15, 2018). "One Burning Question: A Conversation with Evelyn C. White". The Rumpus. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Collection: Evelyn C. White papers | Smith College Finding Aids". findingaids.smith.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-31. CC BY icon-80x15.png  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 3.0 license.
  4. ↑ Cucullu, Laura (November 18, 2004). "Visiting Scholar Evelyn C. White Publishes Biography of Alice Walker". The Campanil. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ White, Evelyn C. (December 9, 2016). "Viola Desmond, Carrie Best, and serving face". Halifax Examiner . Retrieved October 8, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Document 13, "We are not superwomen": Navigating Finances, Identity Politics, and Vision of a Feminist Press". Digitizing American Feminisms. Oberlin College.
  7. ↑ White, Evelyn C. (1990). Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves. Seattle, Washington: Seal Press.
  8. ↑ Villarosa, Linda (August 5, 1990). "IN SHORT: Nonfiction". The New York Times . p. A19. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  9. ↑ "The Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves". Publishers Weekly . Vol. 241, no. 5. January 31, 1990. p. 86. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  10. ↑ Holt, Patricia (June 24, 1990). "Health and Black Women". San Francisco Chronicle . p. 1.
  11. ↑ D'Erasmo, Stacey (October 24, 2004). "'Alice Walker': In Love and Trouble". The New York Times . Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Alice Walker: A Life". Publishers Weekly . June 28, 2004. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia". www.writers.ns.ca. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
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