In a 1994 article, Berry reflected on her upbringing and her mother's abusiveness when she was "in one of her frightening stages of drunkenness.
[7] She is the author of two memoirs entitled The World According to Me (1996) and I'm On My Way, But Your Foot Is On My Head: A Black Woman's Story of Getting Over Life's Hurdles (1997), as well as several novels.
She also wrote The Ties That Bind: A Memoir of Race, Memory and Redemption (2009) about her African American heritage.
[8] Berry's self-help book about her weight-loss journey is entitled A Year to Wellness and Other Weight Loss Secrets (2010), and it won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Instructional) in 2012.
[9] Berry lives in Savannah, Georgia, where she is the co-owner of Iona's Gallery & Great Finds.