Printable Biography of E. Lynn Harris

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Five of Harris’s novels have been New York Times bestsellers.E. Lynn Harris was born in Flint, Michigan and raised, along with three sisters, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where he was the school's first black yearbook editor, the first black male Razorbacks cheerleader, and the president of his fraternity. He graduated with honors with a degree in journalism.

Harris sold computers for IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and AT&T for 13 years while living in Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. He finally quit his sales job to write his first novel, Invisible Life, and, failing to find a publisher, he published it himself in 1991 and sold it mostly at black-owned bookstores, beauty salons, and book clubs before he was "discovered" by Anchor Books. Anchor published Invisible Life as a trade paperback in 1994, and thus his career as an author was "officially" launched.

Invisible Life was followed by Just As I Am (1994), And This Too Shall Pass (1996), If This World Were Mine (1997), and Abide With Me (1999), all published by Doubleday. All of Harris's books have been bestsellers; And This Too Shall Pass, If This World Were Mine , Abide With Me, Not A Day Goes Byand A Love of My Ownwere New York Times bestsellers. They also appeared on the bestseller lists of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Los Angeles Times. Harris's sixth novel, Not A Day Goes By (July 2000) debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list and was a #1 Publishers Weekly bestseller for two consecutive weeks. His seventh novel, Any Way the Wind Blows (July 2001), also debuted at  on the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent novel, A Love of My Own (July 2002), was a national bestseller as well. Currently, there are over three million copies of Harris's novels in print.

Three of his novels have been optioned for film: Invisible Life and Just As I Am by Showtime and Not A Day Goes By by actress Pam Grier for her production company. Harris's writing has also appeared in American Visions, Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine , Savoy, The Advocate,and the award-winning anthology Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America, Go The Way Your Blood Beats. His novella, "Money Can't Buy Me Love" was published in Got To Be Real: Four Original Love Stories (December 2000). In fall 2002, his short fiction appears in Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writers (Harlem Moon), a collection he also co-edited with writer Marita Golden.

Harris has won numerous accolades and prizes for his work. In 1996, Just As I Am was awarded Blackboard's Novel of the Year prize. In 1997, If This World Were Mine was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Abide With Me,Any Way the Wind Blows, and A Love of My Own were also nominated for NAACP Image Awards. In 2002 Any Way the Wind Blows won Harris his second Blackboard Novel of the Year prize, and A Love of My Own was recently named Blackboard Novel of the Year, making Harris the first author to receive back-to-back honors and to receive the prize a record three times.

In 1999, the University of Arkansas honored Harris with a Citation of Distinguished Alumni for outstanding professional achievement, and in October 2000, he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Over the past three years, he has also been named to Ebony's "Most Intriguing Blacks" list, Out Magazine's "Out 100" list, New York Magazine's "Gay Power 101" list, and Savoy's "100 Leaders and Heroes in Black America" list. Other honors have included the Sprague Todes Literary Award and the Harvey Milk Honorary Diploma. Harris is a member of the Board of Directors of the Hurston/Wright Foundation and the Evidence Dance Company.

In addition to his publishing pursuits, Harris has also completed a screenplay for a remake of the 1970's African American classic film Sparkle (to be produced by Warner Brothers with Deborah Martin Chase and Whitney Houston) and has been tapped by Fox Television to write the pilot of a new dramatic series. He made his Broadway debut in the fall of 2001, appearing as the narrator in a benefit performance of "Dreamgirls," starring Lillias White, Heather Headley and Audra McDonald. He later returned to Broadway for one night in "Love Letters to America," alongside Rosie Perez, Annabella Sciorra and other prominent New York film and theater personalities.

Harris is an ardent supporter of up-and-coming writers of color, conducting workshops, mentoring, and including fresh works in the anthologies he edits. Harris's characterization of now-bestselling author Lori Bryant-Woolridge as "a writer to watch" is often credited with propelling early interest in her debut novel, Read Between the Lies. (Harris later included Bryant-Woolridge, and other "young" writers of note, among the authors featured in the Gumbo collection.)

A popular college lecturer, Harris has spoken at the University of Arkansas, Harvard University, Hampton University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, Florida A&M, Ohio State, George Washington University, University of Georgia, University of Illinois, University of Tennessee, Stanford University, College of William and Mary, Virginia Tech, Tufts University, Tennessee State University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, Louisiana State, University of South Carolina, and South Carolina State. This fall, Harris will be a visiting professor in the English department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, his alma mater.