Mildred D. Taylor is the author of nine novels includingThe Road to Memphis, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land, andRoll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.Her bookshave won numerous awards, among them a Newbery Medal (forRoll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and aBostonGlobe Horn BookAward. Her bookThe Landwas awarded theL.A. TimesBook Prize and the PEN Award for Children s Literature. In 2003, Ms. Taylor was named the First Laureate of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children s Literature. Mildred Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and grew up in Toledo, Ohio. After graduating from the University of Toledo, she served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia for two years and then spent the next year traveling throughout the United States, working and recruiting for the Peace Corps. At the University of Colorado s School of Journalism, she helped created a Black Studies program and taught in the program for two years. Ms. Taylor has worked as a proofreader-editor and as program coordinator for an international house and a community free school. She now devotes her time to her family, writing, and what she terms the family ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains."