Grateful American® Foundation

AdLit Interviews Michelle Coles on Her Role as an Author and the Inspiration Behind Her Debut Award-Winning Novel

Coles is the 2022 Grateful American Book Prize winner for her debut novel Black Was the Ink

January 18, 2023

Young Adult novelist Michelle Coles talks about how writing her book, Black Was the Ink, came from the collision of her work as a civil rights attorney for the United States Department of Justice, her being pregnant with her second child, and the 2015 Mother Emanuel Massacre, the most violent hate crime against African Americans that she recalled witnessing in her lifetime.

For more with Michelle, visit her AdLit.org author page.

This author interview was produced through a partnership of the Grateful American Foundation and WETA.

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