Terry McMillan

Terry McMillan has become one of the most popular U.S. writers of the 1990s. Critics associate her with an emergent genre in American literature--black feminist fiction--and her three best- selling books, Mama, Disappearing Acts, and Waiting to Exhale, have generated public enthusiasm beyond anything her publishers expected.

"At fifteen years old, all I was concerned about was what I was going to do with that thirty-two dollars I was getting as my paycheck. I had no fantasies about being a writer. First of all, back then I don't know that I even had any role models. I didn't know about any black writers when I was fifteen-- none. I didn't even know what it was I wanted to do with my life. All I knew is that I was going to college--by hook or by crook, I was going."

Terry McMillan

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