Valerie Wilson Wesley’s latest Tamara Hayle Mystery is Of Blood and Sorrow. She is also the author of the novels 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) and seven Tamara Hayle Mysteries. Her 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, which will be published in 2008. Most of her books have been Blackboard bestsellers, and When Death Comes Stealing was nominated for a Shamus award. The Tamara Hayle Mysteries are published in Great Britain, France, Germany and Poland. Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do and Always True to You in My Fashion are published in Germany. Her 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.

Ms.Wesley’s books for children include seven books in her Willimena Rules! series, Freedom’s Gifts: A Juneteenth Story, Where Do I Go From Here, and The Afro-bets Book of Black Heroes, which she co-wrote with Wade Hudson.

Ms.Wesley served as artist-in-residence at Columbia College in Chicago for the spring semester of 2005. She is currently an adjunct at Ramapo College. She is formerly executive editor of Essence magazine. 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.

Ms. 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.

Website: www.TamaraHayle.com

Email: valwilwes@yahoo.com and valwilwes@aol.com

Valerie Wilson Wesley is the author of three novels, the New Jersey-based Tamara Hayle Mysteries and the Willimena Rules! series for children. Her novels and mysteries are published in Germany, France and the UK, and her nonfiction has been published in magazines such as Family Circle and Essence. In 2000, she recieved the award for excellence in adult fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Ms.Wesley served as artist-in-residence at Columbia College in Chicago for the spring semester of 2005. She is currently an adjunct at Ramapo College in New Jersey. Her new Tamara Hayle Mystery–Of Blood and Sorrow-will be pubilshed in February.