Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1959, Shay Youngblood was an American playwright, author, artist, and educator. Youngblood studied mass communications at Clark Atlanta University and later worked a service project in Haiti that led her to join the Peace Corps shortly after receiving her BA in 1981. Later, she worked at Atlanta’s Charis Books and More, a well-known feminist bookstore, which Youngblood later credited for providing early support for her literary career. In 1993, she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University.
She taught Creative Writing at Syracuse Community Writer’s Project and play writing at the Rhode Island Correctional Institution for Women. From 2002-2003, she was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. During this time, she taught Creative Writing at Ole Miss, and participated in workshops and conferences, including the Oxford Conference of the Book and St. Andrews Episcopal School.
Her plays were staged in theaters across the country, but Atlanta had the honor of hosting numerous Youngblood productions. Between 1988-2010, Horizon Theatre was the venue for two different productions of Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, as well as Amazing Grace, Square Blues, and Talking Bones.
Youngblood’s first collection of short fiction stories, The Big Mama Stories (1989), is a reflection of the African American women that raised her and is based on her play Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery. Both the short stories and the play explore themes of African American women overcoming oppression and violence in the Segregated South through perseverance and interconnectedness. Her debut novel, Soul Kiss (1997), is a coming-of-age story that explores race and respectability.
Youngblood published her first children’s book in 2022, called Mama’s Home. The following year, she published her second children’s book, A Family Prayer.
During her career, Youngblood received many awards, including a Hollywood NAACP Theater Award in 1991, the Pushcart Prize, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, an award from the Paul Green Foundation, and was an Edward Albee Honoree as well as a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist in 1989.
Shay Youngblood died in June 2024 of ovarian cancer. She was 64 years old.