User:Kimannfran/Ann Allen Shockley

Ann Allen Shockley (Born June 21, 1927) is an American author, journalist, critic, and librarian who has written a large amount of nonfiction works but is primarily known for her fictional works exploring Black Lesbianism and interracial relationships. Shockley's writing gained little exposure due to having short life spans in-print, along with her essays and journals appearing mainly in small newspaper articles- many of which were never published, but were kept in a scrapbook by Shockley.

Life
Shockley was born in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky. She is a prolific writer of more than thirty short stories, novels, and articles that address issues of racism and homophobia. Her most well-known novel Loving Her(1974) was her first novel and explored Black lesbianism and interracial relationships.

Shockley graduated with a bachelor's degree from Fisk University in 1948, and subsequently worked as a journalist and column writer for various newspapers. She married William Shockley in 1948, and had two children with, but later divorced. Shockley received her master's degree in library science from Case Western Reserve University in 1959. She was a librarian at Delaware State College and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, before becoming the librarian for Special Negro Collection at Fisk University in 1969. She served as a professor of library science, university archivist, as well as an associate librarian for special collections at Fisk and founded the Black Oral History Program until she later retired in 1988. Throughout her career, she published several books on librarianship and special collections, particularly related to African-American collections.

Newspaper Columns
Shockley has several works in newspaper columns documented from 1945 until 1953 in Louisville Defender, Fisk University Herald, Federalsburg [MD] Times, and Bridgeville [DE] News that centered primarily around issues in the African American community and LGBT community.

Nonfiction

 * A History of Public Library Services to Negroes in the South, 1900–1955 (1960)


 * A Handbook for The Administration of Special Negro Collections (1970)
 * Living Black American Authors: A Bibliography Directory (ed. with Sue P. Chandler) (1973)
 * A Handbook of Black Librarianship (editor, with E. J. Josey) (1977)
 * Afro-American Women Writers, 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide (1988)

Fiction

 * Loving Her (1974)
 * The Black and White of It (1980)
 * Say Jesus and Come to Me (1982)
 * Celebrating Hotchclaw (2005)