'It's your sound, so use it'

 

“Ijust believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in theirown voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your owndistinct sound.” – Terry McMillan

 

Bornin Port Huron, MI on Oct. 18, 1951 McMillan grew up in Michigan, earned adegree from UC-Berkeley, and started her writing career in her late30s.  Her “breakthrough” book was 1992’s Waiting to Exhale,credited with contributing to a shift in Black popular cultural consciousnessand the visibility of a female Black middle-class identity. 

   

Andwhile she drew on her own experiences for part of that book, it was hersemi-autobiographical novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back thatfirmly cemented her writing as a force to be reckoned with.  The most recent of her now-published dozennovels is It’s Not All Downhill From Here.

 

Characterizedby relatable female protagonists, her books, she says, reflect a part ofherself, something she thinks all writers have incorporated into theirwork.   

 

“Fewwriters are willing to admit (that) writing is autobiographical,” shesaid.  “But it mostly is.”