Lisa D. Gray
Lisa Gray received her MFA from Mills College where she began writing her novel Stolen Peaches, which tells the story of twelve girls who participated in a demonstration in Georgia, got arrested, and spent fifteen days in the canning house of an old peach orchard because during the long hot summer of 1963 southern jails overflowed with children protesters trying to change a culture and fight for freedom. She also writes short stories and memoir about growing up in New Haven, CT's mostly Black inner city during the seventies. She has won scholarships to study at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, The Voices of Our Nations Foundation in San Francisco, and The Vermont Studio Center. She recently won the nationally acclaimed Pitchaplooza contest in San Francisco. She teaches a course the focuses on women's leadership at Mills College in Oakland. Lisa started writing as a child and hopes to publish her book in 2012.