Hubbry Logo
Shay YoungbloodShay YoungbloodMain
Open search
Shay Youngblood
Community hub
Shay Youngblood
logo
7 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Shay Youngblood
Shay Youngblood
Shay Youngblood
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia

Sharon Ellen Youngblood (October 16, 1959 – June 11, 2024) was an American playwright, author of short stories and novels, artist, and educator. Her works explored themes of identity, community, and resilience, giving voice to generations of African-American women.

Key Information

Biography

[edit]

Shay Youngblood was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1959, the only child of Mary Lee Kemp and Lonnie Willis Crosby. Her surname came from one of her mother's husbands.[1] Much of Youngblood's fiction mirrors her own life experiences. Like many of her heroines, Youngblood herself was an orphan at an early age. Her mother died when she was about two years old, and she was raised by a community family that included women who resemble the characters depicted in her books and plays.[1]

Youngblood was one of the first people in her family to attend college. While earning her bachelor's degree in mass communication at Clark-Atlanta University,[2] she participated in a service project in Haiti.[3] Her work in Haiti heightened her awareness of the injustice suffered by poor people in many places around the world. Immediately after graduating she joined the Peace Corps,[3] and in 1981 she served as an agricultural information officer in Dominica.[1] She then returned to Atlanta, where she worked at Charis Books & More, one of the oldest feminist bookstores in the country, and where she began her writing career.[1]

When her play Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery was optioned by Sidney Poitier for a film, she used the money to attend Brown University, where she studied under Paula Vogel and Anna Deavere Smith and earned her MFA in Creative Writing in 1993.[1][2][4]

Youngblood was gay. Her marriage to Annette Lawrence, in 2010, ended in divorce in 2020.[1]

Youngblood died from ovarian cancer near Atlanta, on June 11, 2024, at the age of 64.[1][5]

Career

[edit]

Youngblood is recognized as a poet, playwright, and fiction writer, and she also wrote, produced, and directed two short videos. Her play Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, which first premiered at Atlanta's Horizon Theater in 1988, follows a community of black women who nurture a young woman named Daughter, sharing their folk wisdom, biblical teachings, and life experiences. It celebrates the strength and wisdom of African-American women overcoming oppression and violence in the segregated South through interconnected stories of endurance, humor, and perseverance.[6] Reworking the characters of the play, she published The Big Mama Stories in 1989,[2] which is the closest to autobiographical of all of her works.[7] This compilation of short stories focuses on the coming of age of a poor, young African-American girl named Chile. Chile's biological mother, Fannie Mae, has died, and Chile and her brother go to live with a woman called Big Mama, who raises the children with the help of the entire community.[7]

In a brief conversation with Edward Albee early in her career, he advised her to diversify her creative pursuits beyond playwriting, suggesting that she also explore novels, poetry, non-fiction, screenplays, and painting. She followed his advice.[4] She supported herself by painting and cleaning houses while consistently writing, balancing day jobs with periods of travel or artist residencies. She noted that her long-term association with the Yaddo artist colony was particularly fruitful, allowing her to accomplish more in a month there than in a year at home.[4]

She is also known for her works Soul Kiss, her first novel which explores identity and belonging highlighting the complexities of race, class, and gender in 1960s Georgia[8] and Black Girl in Paris,[9] which draws from her experiences in Paris and was motivated by her desire to inspire boldness in others.[4] Influenced by figures like James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, she traveled to Paris with only $200 and limited French. There, she encountered black women with similar dreams of writing novels, making films, and experiencing the expatriate life they had read about in books such as Langston Hughes' The Big Sea. Despite their naivety, they survived and had their own adventures.[4]

Her fiction, articles, and essays have been published in Oprah magazine, Good Housekeeping, BlackBook, and Essence magazines, among many other publications.[10] Her plays – Amazing Grace, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery and Talking Bones – have been widely produced.[3] She also completed a radio play, Explain Me the Blues, for WBGO Public Radio's Jazz Play Series.[11]

Youngblood was a board member of both Yaddo[5] and the Authors Guild.[12] She taught creative writing at City College of New York[5] and was the 2002-2003 John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi.[13] She also taught writing at the Syracuse Community Writer's Project, playwriting at the Rhode Island Adult Institution for Women and Brown University, and creative writing at Texas A&M University.[7] In 2013, she became the Dallas Museum of Art's first Writer in Residence.[4] She also worked as a "Career Advisor to Creatives", where she helped artists, writers and musicians plan their careers, teaching them skills for navigating the job market and networking.[4]

Selected works

[edit]
  • Youngblood, Shay (1989). The Big Mama Stories. Firebrand Books. ISBN 978-0932379573.
  • Youngblood, Shay (1994) [1988]. Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery. Dramatic Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0871292971.
  • Youngblood, Shay (1994). Talking Bones. Dramatic Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0871292988.
  • Youngblood, Shay (1998). Soul Kiss. The Women's Press. ISBN 978-1573226585.
  • Youngblood, Shay (2000). Black Girl in Paris. Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1573221511.
  • Youngblood, Shay (2013). Black Power Barbie: Love lives of heroes. Blue Cloud Press. ISBN 978-1482642292.
  • Youngblood, Shay (2013). Square Blues. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1482332940.
  • Youngblood, Shay (2022). Mama's Home. Random House Children's Books. ISBN 978-0593180228.
  • Youngblood, Shay (2023). A Family Prayer. Random House Children's Books. ISBN 978-0593234709.

Awards

[edit]

Shay Youngblood has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Pushcart Prize for her short story "Born With Religion."[2] She has also received the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award for her play Talking Bones,[1] the Astraea Writers' Award for Fiction, a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Sustained Achievement Award, and several NAACP Theatre Awards.[2]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Shay Youngblood

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
''Shay Youngblood'' was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer known for her lyrical and insightful explorations of African American women's lives, family bonds, community, spirituality, self-discovery, and resilience. Her notable works include the short fiction collection The Big Mama Stories, the play Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, and the novels Soul Kiss and Black Girl in Paris, which draw deeply from her Southern roots and experiences of travel and expatriation. Born October 16, 1959, in Columbus, Georgia, Youngblood was raised by a supportive network of Black women elders known as “big mamas” after her mother’s death, an upbringing that profoundly influenced her emotional depth and literary focus on maternal wisdom and communal strength. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University) in 1981 and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brown University in 1993, following early experiences that included service in Haiti and Peace Corps volunteer work in the Eastern Caribbean, as well as employment at the feminist bookstore Charis Books & More in Atlanta. Youngblood’s writing often centers Black women’s journeys, intergenerational connections, ancestry, sexual identity, and the creation of expansive spaces for fulfillment despite oppression, with settings ranging from small Southern towns to Paris. Her play Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, adapted from The Big Mama Stories, saw numerous productions, particularly through Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre, while her novels Soul Kiss (1997) and Black Girl in Paris (2000) engage with themes of race, respectability, maternal influence, and the legacies of African American expatriates. She also authored plays such as Talking Bones and Flying Blind, along with children’s books including Mama’s Home and A Family Prayer. Her contributions to literature and theater earned her the Pushcart Prize, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and several NAACP Theater Awards. Shay Youngblood died on June 11, 2024, of ovarian cancer at the age of 64.

Early life and education

Childhood and family background

Shay Youngblood was born in 1959 in Columbus, Georgia. Following the death of her mother when Youngblood was two years old, she became an orphan and was raised by an extended family of strong Black women in the projects of Georgia. These women, whom she called her “Big Mamas” and who included her grandmother and great aunts, formed a nurturing community that emphasized resilience and collective support. Growing up amid this group of women in the segregated South, Youngblood was immersed in oral traditions and everyday stories that shaped her early worldview. She developed a profound love of reading as a child, often escaping into books and harboring dreams of flying or living in a library. The strength and voices of these women remained a lasting influence on her sense of identity and community.

Education and early influences

Shay Youngblood earned a B.A. in mass communications from Clark College (now part of Clark Atlanta University) in 1981. During her undergraduate studies, she participated in a service project in Haiti that heightened her awareness of global injustice and social issues. After graduating in 1981, she served in the Peace Corps as an agricultural information officer in Dominica, Eastern Caribbean. She did not take writing seriously until she entered college. She went on to earn an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brown University in 1993. At Brown, she studied under playwright Paula Vogel, who taught her not only to write plays but also to direct, act, and produce them, while exploring diverse forms and styles of theater. Youngblood has described Vogel's mentorship as transformative, stating that working with her "changed my life completely." This graduate training provided foundational skills in dramatic structure and storytelling that informed her subsequent work.

Career

Playwriting and theater work

Shay Youngblood established herself as a playwright with her debut play Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, which premiered at Horizon Theatre in Atlanta in 1988. The work is a memory piece and coming-of-age story centered on a young Black woman named Daughter, who reflects on her childhood in the 1960s South after being raised by a community of strong, nontraditional Black women following her mother's early death. Featuring an all-female cast of eight (with doubling), the play explores rituals of womanhood, collective nurturing, faith, survival, and Southern Black culture through evocative, poetic language that blends everyday speech with expressive storytelling. Widely produced over the decades, it has been praised for its vivid portrayal of a tight-knit community of African American women and its emotionally resonant, unpredictable structure. Her follow-up play Talking Bones (1992) won the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award and examines three generations of women in a small Southern town bookstore who hear ancestral voices guiding their decisions. With a cast of two men and three women, the work delves into themes of lineage, second sight, familial tension, and the interpretation of inner voices as sources of ancestral wisdom and hope. Youngblood drew from her own upbringing in a household where elders heard such voices, using the play to bridge traditional beliefs with modern perspectives on mental and spiritual experience. Youngblood's theater oeuvre frequently foregrounds Black womanhood, Southern identity, queerness, and social justice, often through non-linear narratives, memory, and intergenerational dynamics. Notable later works include Square Blues (written 1992; world premiere at Horizon Theatre in 2022), which follows three generations of a Black Southern family confronting activism, interracial marriage, reparations, and state repression, and Black Power Barbie in Hotel de Dream, a meditation on radical love, loss, and the AIDS epidemic through the lives of two Queer siblings with Black Panther parents. Other plays such as Flying Blind and There Are Many Houses in My Tribe further her focus on resilience amid oppression, mutual aid, and complex Black identities. Her published plays, primarily through Dramatic Publishing, have been widely staged, earning her multiple NAACP Theater Awards, an Edward Albee honor, and a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Sustained Achievement Award. In 2021, she received a commission from Horizon Theatre as part of the Black Southern Women Speak project to amplify Black women's voices. These explorations of community, ancestry, and identity in her stage work influenced the thematic depth of her later novels.

Novels and literary prose

Shay Youngblood's literary prose consists of a collection of short stories and two novels that delve into themes of family, community, sexual identity, history, ancestry, and the Black experience. Her first published prose work, the short story collection The Big Mama Stories (1989), issued by Firebrand Books, is set in the Black small-town South of the early 1960s and captures the richness of being raised into womanhood by a community of women known as "big mamas." The stories are told through the perspective of a girlchild mothered by these women, highlighting daily lives filled with support, cultural heritage, and communal bonds. Youngblood's debut novel, Soul Kiss (1997), published by Riverhead Books, follows Mariah Kin Santos, a seven-year-old girl of African and Latino descent who embarks on a bus journey from Manhattan, Kansas, to a small town in Georgia in 1968, accompanied by her mother before being abandoned and placed in the care of her great-aunts. The narrative traces her eight years of growth, self-discovery, and sexual awakening in an environment shaped by family and Southern Black life. Critics praised the work for its intelligent and erotic portrayal of these themes. Her second novel, Black Girl in Paris (2000), also from Riverhead Books, centers on Eden Daniels, a Black American woman in her mid-20s who travels to Paris in the fall of 1986 seeking artistic inspiration and personal transformation amid the city's mythic allure. Drawing from Youngblood's own period of residence in Paris, the book engages with the Black diaspora, queer identity, and self-exploration while navigating the romanticized yet complex reality of expatriate life. The novel was noted for its bold storytelling and sensuous style. Youngblood's prose is recognized for its lyrical exploration of identity and cultural roots, often drawing on autobiographical elements of childhood in the South and travels abroad. She received acclaim as a Pushcart Prize-winning author, underscoring the impact of her short fiction and novels in contemporary literature.

Screenwriting and film/television contributions

Shay Youngblood's contributions to screenwriting and film include the adaptation of her literary work into visual media and her own production of short videos. Her novel Black Girl in Paris was adapted into a 2013 short film of the same name, directed by Kiandra Parks with screenplay by Kiandra Parks, starring Tracey Heggins and Zaraah Abrahams in a story exploring personal awakening. The short toured the festival circuit, won the American Black Film Festival’s Short Film Award, and became available on HBO Go in 2014. Youngblood also wrote, produced, and directed two short videos, expanding her engagement with visual storytelling beyond literary adaptations. No further details on these videos or additional television credits are documented in available sources.

Awards and recognition

Literary awards

Shay Youngblood received the Pushcart Prize for her short story "Born With Religion," which appeared in her short story collection The Big Mama Stories. The Pushcart Prize recognizes outstanding literary work published by small presses, highlighting her contributions to fiction. Her children's book Mama's Home (illustrated by Lo Harris) was selected for inclusion in the Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices list in 2023, an annual recognition of recommended books for young readers. Youngblood's prose work was further supported by various grants and fellowships for writers, though specific details beyond the Pushcart Prize are primarily noted in biographical overviews of her career.

Theater and media honors

Youngblood received several honors for her playwriting and contributions to theater. In 1993, she was awarded the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award for her play Talking Bones. She also received several NAACP Theater Awards recognizing her work in theater. Additional recognitions include being named an Edward Albee honoree and receiving an award from the Paul Green Foundation. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Playwriting Prize in 1989. In further support of her theatrical work, Youngblood was awarded the 2011 Japan-US Creative Artist Fellowship, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, for research tied to playwriting focused on architecture and memory. She also participated in artist residencies including at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Personal life

Residences and travels

Shay Youngblood's adult life featured several significant relocations and international experiences that informed her creative work. After graduating from Clark Atlanta University, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Dominica in the Eastern Caribbean. She then returned to Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked at the feminist bookstore Charis Books & More, marking her early immersion in the city's literary scene. In her twenties, Youngblood lived in Paris, France, working as an au pair and artist's model. This period proved transformative, as she found her voice as a writer while living there, an experience that directly inspired her novel Black Girl in Paris. Youngblood also resided in Japan as a U.S.-Japan Creative Artist Fellow. She participated in the Yaddo artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1989 and later lived in Providence, Rhode Island, while earning her master's degree in creative writing from Brown University in 1993. In subsequent years, she was based in Atlanta, Georgia, where she maintained long-term ties to the local theater and literary communities, including collaborations with Horizon Theatre.

Personal identity and themes in work

Shay Youngblood's personal identity as a Black queer woman deeply shaped the recurring themes in her novels, short stories, and plays, particularly explorations of sexual identity, race, gender, family, and community. Her works often portrayed complex relationships among Black women, emphasizing empowerment, ancestry, and intimacy in ways that highlighted Black queer experiences. Youngblood was married to the artist Annette Lawrence in 2010, with the marriage ending in divorce in 2020. This same-sex relationship aligned with the queer dimensions present in her oeuvre, where she staged love scenes between Black women that were described as beautiful and rare for their time in theater. Commentators have noted her contributions to depicting Black queerness, positioning her within broader traditions of Black queer cultural expression from the South. Her thematic focus on sexual identity and gender dynamics served to empower representations of Black women's lives and desires across her body of work.

Death

Circumstances and immediate aftermath

Shay Youngblood died on June 11, 2024, at the home of her friend Kelley Alexander in Peachtree City, Georgia, at the age of 64. The cause of her death was ovarian cancer, as confirmed by Alexander. In the weeks following her passing, obituaries and tributes appeared in major publications, reflecting on her life and work. The New York Times published a detailed obituary highlighting her upbringing and literary contributions, noting that she was working on a book about her mother at the time of her death. Colleagues and admirers offered remembrances, with author Jacqueline Woodson describing Youngblood's writing as “a celebration … of so many things about what it means to be a daughter—or niece or cousin or grandchild—of a Black woman.” Playwright Daniel Alexander Jones praised her artistry, stating, “She really made us whole onstage … Her work is far more radical than it might first seem to be. It’s radical because it’s whole food.” Lisa Adler of Horizon Theater Company recalled her early encounter with Youngblood's manuscript for Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, underscoring its impact on regional theater. These responses affirmed Youngblood's standing within the artistic community shortly after her death became widely known.

Legacy

Influence on African American literature and theater

Youngblood's works occupy an important place in African American literature and theater for their unapologetic centering of Black women's lives, experiences, and maternal lineages, often depicting communities of "big mamas" and elders as sources of wisdom, resilience, and emotional sustenance. Her stories and plays portray Black women as "at home in the world and at home with themselves," inhabiting expansive identities that transcend geographic and social limitations. This focus has been characterized as an act of resistance, with minimal references to men and an emphasis on the fierce, funny, and hopeful dimensions of Black womanhood. In theater, Youngblood advanced Black feminist and queer narratives through plays that celebrated intergenerational ties, spirituality, and non-normative identities. Her early work Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery became widely performed and served as a powerful mirror for Black women, influencing later writers such as Jacqueline Woodson, who described it as a celebration of Black daughterhood and kinship. Later plays such as Flying Blind offered rare onstage depictions of Black queer intimacy and joyful, fulfilling lives for lesbian protagonists, marking a radical wholeness in portraying fluidity and multiplicity of identity. These contributions have been noted for presaging contemporary understandings of Black queer representation. Her novel Black Girl in Paris stands as an iconic touchstone, empowering generations of young Black women by presenting an unconventional Black woman artist living on her own terms and reframing African American stories as international narratives. Scholarly analyses position her as an innovative voice who reconfigures the West African griot tradition into a modern Black female griotte, honoring predecessors while rewriting histories to center Black women's experiences, artistic authority, and resistance to racism and sexism in the diaspora. This approach merges oral, written, and visual modes to validate Black women's unique creative power, contributing to ongoing dialogues in African American literary and theatrical traditions.

Posthumous recognition

Following her death on June 11, 2024, Shay Youngblood's contributions to literature and theater were honored through published tributes and a dedicated revival of one of her major works. American Theatre magazine featured an extensive tribute in September 2024 titled "Shay Youngblood Shook the Mess Out of Misery," which celebrated her legacy as a prolific author and playwright who created unapologetically self-possessed Southern Black women characters and mentored younger writers. The piece included reflections from peers such as Tayari Jones and Rosalind Bentley on her enduring influence and commitment to artistic creation despite personal challenges. The Dramatists Guild published a memorial essay titled "In Memory of Shay Youngblood," written by Daniel Alexander Jones, who highlighted her multifaceted career, thematic explorations of Black feminism and queerness, and lasting impact through plays such as Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery and Square Blues. The tribute emphasized her request for a joyful homegoing celebration and her embodiment of creative courage. In May 2025, Pegasus Theatre Chicago presented a revival of Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery as a tribute to Youngblood, dedicating the production to her memory following her passing the previous year. The mounting reimagined her coming-of-age story set in the 1960s, underscoring her ongoing relevance in contemporary theater.

References

  1. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/shay-youngblood/
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/01/books/shay-youngblood-dead.html
  3. https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/contemporaryplaywrightsofcolor/shay-youngblood
  4. https://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/mississippi-writers/shay-youngblood
  5. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/youngblood-shay-1959
  6. https://www.horizontheatre.com/blog/horizon-presents-the-world-premiere-of-square-blues/
  7. https://www.americantheatre.org/2024/09/26/shay-youngblood-shook-the-mess-out-of-misery/
  8. https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/browse/shakin-the-mess-outta-misery
  9. https://www.dramatistsguild.com/thedramatist/memory-shay-youngblood
  10. https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/browse/talking-bones
  11. https://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsY/youngblood-shay.html
  12. https://www.dramatistsguild.com/members/shayyoungblood
  13. https://penumbratheatre.org/shay-youngblood/
  14. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Big_Mama_Stories.html?id=hnxbAAAAMAAJ
  15. https://www.amazon.com/Big-Mama-Stories-Shay-Youngblood/dp/0932379575
  16. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/393004.Soul_Kiss
  17. https://aalbc.com/books/soul-kiss-9781573226585
  18. https://booksrun.com/9781573220637-soul-kiss-1st-edition
  19. https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Girl_in_Paris.html?id=78jPCE4WxFQC
  20. https://www.amazon.com/Black-Girl-Paris-Shay-Youngblood/dp/1573221511
  21. http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781573221511
  22. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3037920/
  23. https://goodblacknews.org/2014/03/03/short-film-black-girl-in-paris-by-kiandra-parks-heads-to-hbo/
  24. http://www.femmenoir.net/Leaders-Legends/ShayYoungblood.htm
  25. https://northtexan.unt.edu/obituaries/shay-youngblood.html
  26. https://www.macdowell.org/artists/shay-youngblood
  27. https://library.teachingbooks.net/authorBookAwards.cgi?id=43926
  28. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/255210/shay-youngblood/
  29. https://thegrio.com/2024/07/03/shay-youngblood-writer-of-black-girl-in-paris-and-shakin-the-mess-outta-misery-dead-at-64/
  30. https://panoramajournal.org/issues/issue-15-paris/paris-remembering-shay-youngblood/
  31. https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2024/jul/01/shay-youngblood-influential-black-author-and/
  32. https://www.ajc.com/news/obituaries/georgia-writer-rose-from-poverty-in-columbus/CNAJVITXP5ELXA3RZIJ3OAQHXY/
  33. https://daily.jstor.org/from-the-black-queer-south-to-the-world/
  34. https://books.openedition.org/pulm/9558?lang=en
  35. https://pegasustheatrechicago.org/productions/shakin-the-mess-outta-misery-2025/
  36. https://chicagocrusader.com/pegasus-revives-shakin-the-mess-outta-misery-in-tribute-to-shay-youngblood/
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.