In honor of Black History month I am featuring African American authors who made history by accomplishing extraordinary feats at a time when the odds were so heavily stacked against them.  This week the spotlight rests on Ann Petry, the first African American female author to sell over one million copies of her book.

Petry was born in 1911 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where her father and grandfather ran a drugstore. Petry loved to read and from the age of fourteen she knew she wanted to be a writer. She  wrote poetry and short plays in high school, but after graduation she chose the safe route and enrolled in the pharmacy program at the University of Connecticut where she earned her PhG degree. Ann worked in the family business until she married in 1938 and moved to New York. (more…)