Famous Black Authors (Crossword Puzzle)

Across:

	3		An author of the Harlem Renaissance, her novel, "The Living is Easy," detailed an upper-class black family during World War I.
	4		He edited The Book of American Negro Poetry in 1922.
	6		This Harlem Renaissance author's unmarked grave was discovered in Ft. Pierce, Florida by Alice Walker and Charlotte D. Hunt; her novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," was published in the 1930s.
	7		Also a Harlem Renaissance author, his amalgam of stories, poems, and sketches about black life in rural Georgia and the urban North was published in 1923.
	8		His "Notes of a Native Son" was a direct response to Richard Wright's book, while his first novel, "Go Tell It on the Mountain," reflected on his life in Harlem as the son of a Baptist minister.
	9		Pen name of the African-American author who ended up landing a deal with Simon & Schuster after she began writing erotic fiction in 1997 as a pastime.
	10		Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, this Nobel Prize-winning American author is known for exploring the experiences and roles of black women in a racist and male dominated society.
	12		As a slave, her interest in literature led her to write and publish Poems on Various Subjects in 1773.
	13		Perhaps the most recognized writer of the Renaissance, he asked, "What happens to a dream deferred?"
	15		His first movie, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," became an unexpected hit, prompting widespread discussion among industry watchers about whether or not middle-class African Americans were being addressed by mainstream Hollywood movies.
	17		Born Thelma Lucille Sayles, this poet, known for her poems, "homage to my hips" and "poem to my uterus," won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition
	18		Young playwright who became the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway; "A Raisin in the Sun," a tender portrait of a poor black family in Chicago, was awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1959.
	19		His slave narrative was published in 1845, after he escaped slavery for the second time.
	22		The first black woman to create and executive produce an hour-long series that lasted longer than one season, this screenwriter, director and producer is best known as the creator and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.
	24		His "Native Son" is regarded as an unflinching condemnation of racism.
	28		This novelist, short story writer, and poet became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983.
	29		One of the talented poets published in The Book of American Negro Poetry.

Down:

	1		Born Marguerite Johnson, she was an author and poet known for her autobiographical books such as "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and poems such as "On the Pulse of the Morning."
	2		An educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute, he published works such as Up From Slavery and The Future of the American Negro.
	5		Playwright of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/when the rainbow is enuf."
	11		One of few African-American female science fiction authors, this Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer, diagnosed as dyslexic during her childhood, wrote the 1979 "grim fantasy" novel that uses time travel to explore slavery in the United States.
	14		Writer who is best known for the novel "Roots."
	16		His "Invisible Man" brought readers inside the world of an ordinary black person in the 1940s and 1950s.
	20		Screenwriter, film director, and producer who remains the youngest person and the only African-American ever nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, so far.
	21		Crime fiction novelist mostly recognized for his series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective who is a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.
	23		Award-winning African-American author of books such as "Feathers," that are written for children and young adults.
	25		Author of the speculative fiction novel published in 1999 that contained the themes of Social Elevation of African Americans, Uplift Ideology, and Social Change.
	26		One of the original founders of the NAACP who published a collection of essays titled "The Souls of Black Folk."
	27		American Book Award-winning author of nine books including a mystery, a civil rights memoir, and supernatural thrillers such as "Blood Colony," which will continue the saga of African immortals with healing blood.
	29		As Toomer's contemporary, he was recognized for his use of traditional poetry forms to illuminate everyday black life.