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Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is an award-winning and bestselling author and educator for both youth and adults. She is the author of eleven books for children including the New York Times bestsellers Will’s Race for Home, Black Brother, Black Brother and Ghost Boys which has won over 50 honors and awards. Her other books include Soul Step, Treasure Island: Runaway Gold, Paradise on Fire, Towers Falling, the celebrated Louisiana Girls Trilogy: Ninth Ward, Sugar, and Bayou Magic. 

Rhodes is the author of six adult novels: Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass’ Women, Season, Moon, and Hurricane, as well as the memoir Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness, and two writing guides, Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Non-Fiction.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Coretta Scott King Book Award and a Coretta Scott King Honor Award, as well as the American Book Award, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, a Coretta Scott King Honor Award, the Jane Addams Peace Association Book Award, an NAACP Image Award Nomination, the Green Earth Book Award, and the Octavia E. Butler Award for Speculative Fiction and Fantasy. 

Rhodes has visited hundreds of schools across the country and is a regular speaker at colleges and conferences. The driving force behind all of her work is to inspire social justice, equity, and environmental stewardship.

Rhodes is the Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Narrative Studies Professor and Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair at Arizona State University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carnegie-Mellon University. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Seattle.