Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta based writer whose work has won commercial acceptance and critical praise in several genres. An award winning playwright whose *Flyin' West* was the most produced new play in the country in 1994, Pearl is also a best selling author whose first novel, *What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day*, was an Oprah Book Club pick and spent nine weeks on the *New York Times* bestseller list. Her subsequent novels have been consistent best sellers and perennial book club favorites. *I Wish I Had A Red Dress*, her second novel, won multiple book club awards in 2001. *Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do*, was a "Good Morning America!" book club pick in 2003, and *Babylon Sisters* made the *ESSENCE * magazine best seller list in 2005. Her most recent novel, *Baby Brother's Blues*, was the first pick of the new *ESSENCE* Book Club and an NAACP Image Award winner for fiction in 2007. Pearl was a popular columnist with *The Atlanta Tribune* for ten years and has contributed as a freelance writer to *ESSENCE*, *Ms.*, *Rap Pages*, *VIBE* and *Ebony*. Pearl's work occupies a unique niche in contemporary African American fiction. She balances issues as challenging as AIDS, domestic violence and urban blight, but the distinguishing features of her books are her optimism, her commitment to positive change and transformation, and her unwavering faith in the possibility and power of romantic love.