Savanna Welles

Valerie Wilson Wesley, who also writes under the pseudonym Savanna Welles, is the author of the Tamara Hayle Mystery series and of three novels including Playing My Mother’s Blues, Always True to You in My Fashion and Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do for which she received the 2000 award for excellence in adult fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA). Her Tamara Hayle mysteries include When Death Comes Stealing, Devil's Gonna Get Him, Where Evil Sleeps, No Hiding Place, Easier to Kill, The Devil Riding, Dying in the Dark, and Of Blood and Sorrow. Most of her books have been Blackboard bestsellers, and When Death Comes Stealing was nominated for a Shamus award. Her mysteries have been published in Great Britain, France, Germany and Poland and her novels in Germany. Wesley's short stories and essays are included in the anthologies The Bluelight Corner, Black Women Writing on Passion, Sex and Romantic Love, edited by Rosemarie Robotham, Gumbo, A Literary Rent Party, edited by Marita Golden and E. Lynn Harris and Room to Grow, edited by Christina Baker Kline. Wesley’s books for children include the Willimena Rules! series, Freedom’s Gifts: A Juneteenth Story and Where Do I Go From Here, and The Afro-bets Book of Black Heroes, which she co-wrote with Wade Hudson. She is currently an adjunct professor at Ramapo College in New Jersey and a former executive editor of Essence magazine. In 2005, she was an artist-in-residence at Columbia College in Chicago. Her fiction and nonfiction for both adults and children have appeared in many publications, including Essence, Family Circle, TV Guide, Ms, Creative Classroom and Weltwoche, a Swiss weekly newspaper. She is a 1993 recipient of the Griot Award from the New York Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. She has received awards from several book groups and community organizations, including 2004 Author of the Year from the Amigirls Book Club and 1996 Author of the Year from the Go On Girls Book Club. She is a former board member of Sisters in Crime, an organization committed to promoting women writing mysteries. Wesley is a graduate of Howard University and holds masters degrees from both the Bank Street College of Education and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is married to noted screenwriter and playwright Richard Wesley and has two adult daughters.