Nancy Rawles

Nancy Rawles is an African American playwright, novelist, and teacher.

Nancy grew up in Los Angeles. She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism.

Nancy studied play writing in Chicago with Linda Walsh Jenkins and Steven Carter. She later studied with C. Bernard Jackson of Los Angeles (Inner City) Cultural Center and Valerie Curtis Newton of The Hansberry Project. She is a contributor to the Female Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University under the direction of Bernadette Brooten, Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies.

• 2009 Seattle Reads My Jim
• 2007 Artist Trust Fellowship in Fiction
• 2006 American Library Association Alex Award
• 2006 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award in Fiction
• 2000 Astraea Foundation, Claire of the Moon Award for Fiction
• 1998 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation
• 1998 Washington State Governor’s Writers Award

Novels

• Love Like Gumbo. Fjord Press. 1997. ISBN 978-0-940242-75-3. 
• Crawfish Dreams. Random House, Inc. 2003. ISBN 978-0-385-50418-8. 
• My Jim. Crown Publishers. 2005. ISBN 978-1-4000-5400-8. 

Criticism

• Rawles, Nancy (July 10, 2005). "Chains of Madness". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2010. 

In Nancy Rawles's third novel, the sad and gripping My Jim, Jim not only lives on as a character but shoulders the burden of inspiration. Thus Rawles's novel joins a now copious literary tradition of writers building their books on antecedent texts...