veronica chambers
In 1996, Veronica Chambers wrote Mama's Girl, a memoir about growing up. Mama's Girl was a Book of the Month Club selection and an American Library Association Best Book of 1996. In 1991, she co-wrote her first book Poetic Justice: Filmmaking South Central Style with film-maker John Singleton. She had interviewed John for Seventeen Magazine and after the piece came out, they kept in touch about their work—him with movies, Veronica doing little freelance pieces in Glamour and the Village Voice. Since then, she has also published several books for children including: Amistad Rising (a picture book), The Harlem Renaissance (a middle grade book) and two young adult novels, Marisol and Magdalena, Quinceanera Means Sweet 15, and Double Dutch: A Celebration of Jump Rope, Rhyme and Sisterhood.
Veronica has written and edited for national magazines for twelve years, including stints at Premiere Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. For three years she was a culture writer at Newsweek where she wrote about books, movies and music, as well as broader pieces about society and culture. In 1999, she co-wrote a Newsweek cover story on Latino youth. Veronica is of Panamanian descent and a great deal of her work has focused on stories that reflect both her African and Latin heritage. Her journalism can also be found in Esquire, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Travel and Leisure, Vogue, Essence, USA Weekend, Savoy, Food and Wine and others.
Essays can be found in the following collections: The Bitch in the House, Growing Up Ethnic in America, Becoming American, Black Hair: Art, Style, and Culture, and Body.
Having It All? Black Women and Success is Veronica's latest book. In it, she interviewed women she's long admired like production designer, Liba Daniels; former television producer, Lynette Hall; and Studio Museum curator, Thelma Golden.
In 2005, Veronica Chambers' debut novel Miss Black America was published. It's the story of a single father, raising his daughter after his wife's mysterious disapperance. Veronica's fifth children's book was also published, Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa.
In 2006, Veronica Chambers published a collection of essays, The Joy of Doing Things Badly, describing her successes and challenges from signing on as a philanthropist to ballet dancing.
In 2007, Veronica Chambers published Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women Are Changing Their Nation, where she notes men are no longer the driving force of the economy and women, now independent world-wide travelers and consumers, are taking the reins.
www.veronicachambers.com
For more speakers on feminist journalism, see: Paula Kamen, Jennifer Baumgardner, Lisa Jervis, Farai Chideya, Irshad Manji, Courtney E. Martin, Suzanne Braun Levine
For more speakers on race and racism, see Farai Chideya, Loretta Ross, Wyndi Marie Anderson, Meri Nana-Ama Damquah, Marcia Ann Gillespie, Irshad Manji, Catherine McKinley, David Oppenheimer, Lisa Tiger
