Tina McElroy Ansa – C’71, Tina McElroy Ansa, a teacher, editor, publisher and gardener, is the author of five award-winning novels, including Baby of the Family, The Hand I Fan With, Ugly Ways, You Know Better and Taking After Mudear. All five of of her novels are on the Georgia Center for the Book’s “List of Books All Georgians Should Read.” Baby of the Family and The Hand I Fan With both received the Georgia Authors Series Award. And Ugly Ways was nominated for an “NAACP Image Award in Fiction.”

In 2020, Ansa edited and wrote the Introduction to the anthology MEETING AT THE TABLE: African -American Women Write on Race, Culture and Community with her freshman Spelman College roommate journalist Wanda S. Lloyd in response to the turbulence and social justice protests that emerged in American life. Ansa’s DownSouth Press published the collection of stellar essays by a cross-section of 15 brilliant black women thinkers.

In 2004, Ansa founded the Sea Island Writers Retreat in her home state of Georgia and has taken the retreats on the road around the country, including to the Spelman College campus. The most recent retreat was held in November of 2022 on Tybee Island, Georgia, with Ansa, Crystal Wilkinson, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Dawn Turner, Nic Stone, Wanda Lloyd (Class of ‘71), and Regina Taylor leading workshops

In 2007, Ansa founded the independent publishing company DownSouth Press, which published her fifth novel, Taking After Mudear. That novel also was chosen for the Georgia Center for Fiction’s “… Should Read List.”

In 2021, Ansa launched the podcast with sister Lloyd, appropriately titled, “2 Old Chicks Who Know a Lot of Sh*t.” The podcast is in its fourth year.

Ansa has received the Bebe Moore Campbell Memorial Award from the National Book Club Conference. She has been awarded the Stanley W. Lindberg Award for her body of work and for her contributions to the literary arts community of Georgia. She was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University.

As well as lecturing and reading around the country, Ansa has also contributed “Essays From Georgia” to CBS Sunday Morning.

In 2011, Ansa was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts from her alma mater Spelman College.

Ansa serves on the board of the St. Simons Island African-American Heritage Coalition. She is the first African -American. “Come her’” on the board, which fills her with pride.

She is at work on her sixth novel and is writing her first work of nonfiction. She is blessed to live and write on St. Simons Island, Georgia, along the Gullah-Geechee Corridor, where she always has greens growing outside her door.