She regularly received starred book reviews and was also winner of the Gold Pen Award, Best of Borders, and several reviewers’ choice awards. Sharon Ewell Foster was a critically acclaimed award-winning author, speaker, and teacher. She was the author of Passing by Samaria, the first successful work of Christian fiction by an African American author, and The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part One: The Witnesses, which won the 2012 Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction. Sharon was a Christy Award–winning author whose books earned her a loyal following that crossed market, gender, and racial boundaries. Joseph’s AME Church in Durham and a soloist in the Inspirational Singers Contemporary Gospel Choir at St. She is currently working on a three-part series with her new publisher, and she recently published an independent work, a collection of short stories titled Riding Dirty and with Jesus? with Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing. She is an Essence magazine bestselling author.

She has published five novels– Church Folk, Second Sunday, Holy Ghost Corner, Up at the College, and More Church Folk–with Grand Central Publishing (NY, NY). Michele has an interdisciplinary professional background. She went on to pursue additional graduate training and earned graduate degrees in United States history and public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Louis with an undergraduate degree in psychology and graduate degrees in social work and counseling education. She graduated from Washington University in St. She has lived in Durham, NC for several decades, and it is her second home. We’re kicking off the celebration by acknowledging some of the founders of this life-changing genre, which is celebrating its 25 th anniversary. This month, in celebration of the Christian Book Lover’s Retreat, which will be held October 27 to October 30 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Black Fiction Addiction is spotlighting Black Christian authors.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Patricia Haley