Beverly Jenkins was born in 1951 in Detroit, Michigan. She is an American writer who creates books about love stories in the past and today. Her books often focus on the lives of African Americans in the 1800s. In 2013, she was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. In 1999, she was chosen as one of the Top 50 Favorite African American writers of the 20th century by the African American Literature Book Club. Jenkins writes about a time in African American history that she believes is often ignored. This made it hard for her to get her books published because publishers were unsure how to handle stories about African Americans that did not focus on slavery. She studied Journalism and English Literature at Michigan State University. She currently lives in Southeastern Michigan.
Early life
Jenkins was born in Detroit in 1951 to her parents, a high school teacher and a school administrator. Jenkins grew up around books. Her mother read to her while she was in the womb and gave her soft cloth books as a baby. Jenkins would chew on the cloth books while her mother encouraged her to "Eat those words, baby. Eat those words." Jenkins read many different books at her local library, including Alice in Wonderland, Dune, Zane Grey, and early romance novel authors like Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis A. Whitney. Her early writing experience began when she became the editor of her elementary school newspaper. Jenkins attended Michigan State University in the spring of 1969.
Career
Jenkins worked full-time at the circulation department of the Michigan State University library. Every lunch hour, she read articles from The Journal of Negro History, which is now called The Journal of African American History. Later, Jenkins and her husband moved to Ypsilanti, where she worked at the reference desk of Parke Davis Pharmaceuticals and started writing romance novels as a hobby. After a colleague suggested it, Jenkins looked for an agent and publisher. She sent her manuscript to Vivian Stephens, who agreed to represent her. Avon published her first novel, Night Song, in 1994.
Jenkins has written books in many types of romance stories, but most of her books are historical romances. She calls herself a "kitchen table historian." She compares American history to a quilt with some pieces missing—the parts about minority history. Jenkins uses her books to add those pieces back by showing parts of Black history that are not usually taught in school. Slavery and the Civil Rights Movement are important parts of African American history, but there are other parts too. For example, her first three novels, Night Song, Vivid, and Indigo, have characters like a schoolteacher, a cavalry officer, a female doctor, and heroes of the Underground Railroad. These characters are based on real history.
Jenkins got the idea for her book Forbidden from two interesting pieces of history. First, she read a news article about a high-end hotel run by African Americans that was found during an archaeological dig in Virginia City. She also heard a story about a man who saw a Black woman walking through the desert with a cook stove balanced on her head. Jenkins includes bibliographies in her historical romance books so readers can learn more if they want to.
Awards
- 1996 – Romantic Times Historical Love and Laughter Nominee
- 1999 – Romantic Times Western Historical Romance Winner
- 2000 – Romantic Times Multicultural Romance Winner
- 2007 – Romantic Times Historical Storyteller of the Year Nominee
- 2010 – A Second Helping – Romantic Times Multicultural Fiction Novel Winner
- 2011 – Something Old, Something New – Romantic Times Multicultural Romance Winner
- 2013 – Destiny's Embrace – Romantic Times American-Set Historical Romance Winner
- 2013 – A Wish and a Prayer – NAACP Image Award for Literature Nominee
- 2016 – Forbidden – Romantic Times Historical Romance Winner
- 2017 – RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award