Patricia McKissack

Patricia C. McKissack (née Carwell; August 9, 1944 – April 7, 2017) was a prolific African American children's writer.

She was the author of over 100 books, including Dear America books A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl; Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, The Great Migration North; and Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau, a French Slave Girl.

She also wrote a novel for The Royal Diaries series: Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba.

Patricia L'Ann Carwell was born to parents Robert and Erma Carwell on August 9, 1944, in Smyrna, Tennessee.

She was inspired to be a writer by her mother, who liked to read her the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and by her grandparents who told her many stories.

Her grandfather's stories usually included the names of her and siblings Nolan and Sarah.

Many of the childhood stories she heard from her mother and grandparents later became stories she wrote as an author of books for children and young adults.

She graduated with an English degree in 1964 while Fredrick obtained a civil engineering degree.

They were married on December 12, 1965, and started their family right away.

After traveling to Missouri, McKissack attended Webster University and graduated with a M.A. in child education.

She then became a junior high-school English teacher, but in 1971 realized that she wanted to be an author.

In 1975, Patricia McKissack began her professional writing career.

After Fredrick's business failed in 1980, the couple decided to pursue a new career path together—writing full-time.

In 1980, she became a full-time author.

Her family moved to St. Louis, where she started a writing service.

Her husband, Fredrick, also became interested in writing and researching for non-fiction books.

One of their goals as a couple was to introduce children to African-American history and the historical figures that went along with it.

Fredrick was the researcher of the pair, while Patricia mostly wrote up the research.

They worked together to make manuscripts that suited them both, and together they aimed to make history come alive in stories for children.

Notable standalone works include Flossie & the Fox (1986), The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural (1992), and Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? (1992).

The eldest, Fredrick McKissack, Jr., is also a writer and a journalist who collaborated with his mother to create several books, including the award-winning book for older readers, Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues (1994).

Her other two sons, twins Robert Lewis and John Patrick, also collaborated on separate projects with their mother.

In 1995, they moved to Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.

Patricia and Fredrick McKissack worked and published more than 100 books together over the course of 20 years.

In addition to her solo work, McKissack co-wrote many books with her husband, Fredrick, with whom she also co-won the Regina Medal in 1998.

Other stories, like Goin' Someplace Special (2000), incorporated McKissack's lived experiences.

In Goin' Someplace Special, she recalled her favorite place to go as a child, which was the Nashville Public Library.

The library was one of the few places in downtown Nashville that was not segregated, so it became a place where McKissack always felt welcome and where she learned her love for reading.

While attending Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University now known as the Tennessee State University, McKissack met up with a childhood friend, Fredrick McKissack, who would later become her husband.

Robert co-wrote Itching and Twitching: A Nigerian Folktale (2003), and John Patrick co-wrote The Clone Codes trilogy (2010, 2011, 2012).

For many years the McKissacks lived in a renovated inner-city home.

Fredrick died in April 2013 at the age of 73.

Patricia McKissack was also a board member of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance, a national not-for-profit that actively advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries.

She also published under the names L'Ann Carwell, Pat McKissack, and Patricia C. McKissack.

They continued their writing partnership up until his death in 2013.

Patricia and Fredrick had three sons.

At the time of Fredrick's death, they were working together on at least one work—Let's Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out!: Games, Songs & Stories From An African American Childhood (2017)—which Patricia completed on her own.

McKissack continued writing on her own, but died of cardio-respiratory arrest on April 7, 2017, at the age of 72.

What is Given from the Heart was published posthumously in 2019.

McKissack lived in St. Louis.