1. Alice Walker born Feb. 9, 1944 “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”

2. Short Biography Born February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia to Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker, Willie Lee Walker--poor sharecroppers, the eighth and youngest child in the family. Cherokee and African descent. Blinded and facially scarred by a BB gun pellet in 1952. Was valedictorian and prom queen in h.s. Went Spelman college and Sarah Lawrence College. Daughter, Rebecca, born in 1969. Mentored by poet, Muriel Rukeyser and writer, Jane Cooper. Fellowship at Radcliffe. Taught at Wellesley where she created one of the first women’s studies courses in the U.S.. Taught also at Yale. Co-founded Wild Trees Press (1984-88) Hobby is gardening.

3. MajorThemes in Walker’s Work Poverty (and how hope rises from it) Family Love Sexuality Violence Racism and slavery Sexism

4. Major Works The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women and Revolutionary Petunias & Other Poems (1973)--poetry Meridian (1976) The Color Purple (1982) In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens (1983)—collection of essays Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984) The Temple of My Familiar (1989) Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998) Now is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004)

5. Awards Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color Purple Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters, Nominated for the National Book Award, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Merrill Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowship Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman's Club of New York Townsend Prize Lyndhurst Prize.