Andrea Davis Pinkney is the wife of Brian Pinkney, who spoke at the first Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature, and the daughter-in-law of Jerry Pinkney, who was at Rabbit Hill several years ago.  She is the daughter of parents deeply involved in the civil rights movement. As a result, Pinkney was exposed to the movement at a young age and was even involved in the annual conference of the National Urban League during many of her summer vacations. The Civil Rights Movement played a large role in her childhood and its influence is visible in many of her books.

In addition to writing wonderful biographies (most of them illustrated by Brian) about people who followed their dreams (Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Alvin Ailey, Bill Pickett the black cowboy, and others), she has written several novels for children.  Hold Fast to Dreams is based on her own experience when her family moved to Wilton, CT, and she was the only black student in her school.  Raven in a Dove House is a contemporary coming-of-age novel that touches on kids having access to guns.

Andrea will speak on Saturday from her perspective as an editor.  She has had a remarkable career in publishing, and was the founder of the "Jump at the Sun" imprint at Hyperion, which publishes books by minority writers. She worked for a while at Houghton Mifflin as editorial director and is now vice president and editorial director at Scholastic Press. 

She will be working with the students at McKinley School in Bridgeport during the Friday school visits.  The first-year principal there, William Rice, was instrumental this year in getting some of his fifth graders entered into a national writing contest and four of them won awards out of less than 200 across the country. Those award winners will be in 6th grade at McKinley next year, so they will all get to meet Andrea.

last updated 7-13-07