Archive - September 29, 2024

Obituary —   Celebrated author and playwright RPCV Shay Youngblood (Dominica 1981-83) died of ovarian cancer on June 11 in Peachtree City, Ga. She was 64. Born Sharon Ellen Youngblood in Columbus, Ga., in 1959, Youngblood penned novels, poetry, children’s books, and plays, creating powerful Southern Black women characters who were unapologetically self-possessed and free in ways not typically seen in women characters in general, and Black women in particular, in the U.S. Following the death of her mother when she was 2 years old, Youngblood was raised by her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Youngblood credited her upbringing by her grandmothers and their tight-knit circle of friends for shaping and molding her worldview on relationships, society, power, and identity; they and a group of their friends influenced the characters she wrote. Shay also mirrored the close-knit community she grew up in by becoming part of a circle of Black women . . .