Photos: Remembering Valerie Boyd, author and former AJC arts editor

Obituaries

Photos: Remembering Valerie Boyd, author and former AJC arts editor

Gallery: Valerie Boyd, who wrote a biography of Zora Neale Hurston and editor of an upcoming collection of author Alice Walker's journals, has died at age 58

Valerie Boyd, who wrote a highly regarded biography of Zora Neale Hurston and editor of an upcoming collection of author Alice Walker's journals, has died at age 58.

Boyd, who had been battling cancer, died Saturday Feb. 12, 2022. No cause of death has been cited.

Boyd was a native of Atlanta who studied as an undergraduate at Northwestern University and received a master's degree in creative nonfiction writing from Goucher College.

At the time of her death, she was working on the anthology “Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic."

Boyd was a native of Atlanta who studied as an undergraduate at Northwestern University and received a master's degree in creative nonfiction writing from Goucher College.

Boyd was a former arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whose "Wrapped in Rainbow: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston" was published in 2003 and praised by The New York Times for its “painstaking and thorough” research.

Boyd was an associate professor and writer in residence at the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia.

Boyd is shown at the time she was researching her book on Zora Neale Hurston back on Jan. 9, 1998 in her home office.

Boyd's articles appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post among other publications and she helped found the magazines EightRock and HealthQuest.

Simon & Schuster will publish Boyd's “Gathering Blossoms Under Fire, The Journals of Alice Walker 1965-2000” on April 12.

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Credit: File Photo

Valerie Boyd, who wrote a highly regarded biography of Zora Neale Hurston and editor of an upcoming collection of author Alice Walker's journals, has died at age 58.

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