Dominica

DNYUZ July 3, 2024   Shay Youngblood (Dominica 1981-83), a novelist and playwright whose works about her upbringing by a churchgoing cohort of “Big Mamas” and her adventures in Paris as a young aspiring writer inspired a generation of young Black women, died on June 11 at the home of a friend, Kelley Alexander, in Peachtree City, Ga. She was 64. Ms. Alexander said the cause was ovarian cancer. Ms. Youngblood, whose mother died when she was 2 years old and whose father was not in her life, grew up in a housing project in Columbus, Ga., where she raised by her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, along with a close circle of eccentric and adoring maternal stand-ins. The Big Mamas — stoic, arthritic and wise — had much to impart to the young Shay: their dim view of most men; their love of music, dancing and church; their often bawdy . . .