Lorene Cary

Powerful storyteller, educator, and social activist delivering autobiographical, historical, and fictional stories about issues surrounding race and class.

  • Writes about affecting issues: race, the lives of women, education, growing up
  • In 1998 Cary founded Art Sanctuary, an organization that uses the power of black art to transform individuals and unite groups of people.
  • Collaborated with the National Park Service on the new video installation, “President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (Independence Mall in Philadelphia).
  • Her debut work, Black Ice, has been called “a journey into selfhood that resonates with sober reflection, intelligent passion, and joyous love.”
  • Her new book, If Sons, then Heirs, written with intimacy and compassion about the power of family secrets, the hard legacy of lynching and segregation, and the resilience of the human spirit .

Pride cover      Free! Great Escapes from Slavery

CARY, Black Ice      CARY, If Sons Then Heirs

A powerful storyteller, frankly sensual, mortally funny, gifted with an ear for the pounce [of] real speech.

- The New York Times

I still have teachers and students coming up to me saying how much they enjoyed Lorene. She was a pleasure to have on campus.

- Lawrence Academy

Probably the most beautifully written and the most moving African-American autobiographical narrative since Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

- Meredith College