Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born, on Feb. 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. When she was eight years old, Walker was shot with a BB gun, an accident that left her blind in the right eye and that traumatized her to the point where she dreamt about suicide. However, Walker stayed sane by constantly writing poetry and short stories.From 1961 until 1963, Walker attended Spelman College and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she completed a B.A. in 1965. Walker's career after college was not focused on writing; instead, she held a number of academic appointments as both a literature and black studies instructor and a writer in residence at Jackson State College from 1968 until 1969 and at Tougaloo College from 1970 until 1971. Walker also worked at Wellesley College and the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1972 until 1973. In 1982, she also held positions at the University of California at Berkeley and at Brandeis University. In addition to teaching, Walker also worked for voter registration in Georgia, for the Head Start program in Mississippi and for the Welfare Department in New York City.

In 1973, Walker published her first anthology of poetry "In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women" and her second book of poetry "Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems." She then wrote a children's book about Langston Hughes and briefly became editor of the feminist publication "Ms. magazine." Although Walker's career gained somewhat of a reputation with her earlier writings, she gained worldwide fame with the publication of her novel "The Color Purple," which won the Pulitzer Prize.