Connie Rose Porter (born July 29, 1959) is an African-American writer of young-adult books, and a teacher of creative writing.
Porter spent her childhood and youth growing up in Lackawanna, New York, a small city just outside Buffalo in the Baker Housing project with her family.
[1][2] Her parents, who survived the Great Depression, raised a family of ten, the children spread 23 years apart,[1] and lived on a meager fixed income, experiencing hard times.
"Inspired by her readings of Nikki Giovanni, she first wrote poetry that was angry and admittedly awful, but that was important to her growing cultural awareness".
All-Bright Court is about the story of Southern Blacks who move to a Northern town to pursue greater job opportunities and a better life.
The New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani commented that, "Though her prose is often lyrical, even poetic, [Porter] does not shirk from showing the reader the harsh reality of her characters' daily lives.
Indeed, the emotional power of All-Bright Court resides in her finely rendered characters, people who come alive for the reader as individuals one has known firsthand".
[9] The books follow Addy Walker, a young slave who runs away with her mother to freedom in Philadelphia during the American Civil War.
[8] preparation for writing a novel with the heavy issue of slavery as the basis of the book, Ms. Porter did extensive research about 1864 to accurately portray the era and environment to help the reader achieve a real sense of being in 1864.
Released in 1998 after the first six Addy books, the novel is the coming of age tale of Tasha, a black 15-year-old girl growing up in Buffalo, New York, an honors student who wants to go to college to escape her inner city life.
Not describing myself as a black woman will not prevent that from happening" [5] At one point, Porter lived in Pittsburgh with her mother and 18 month old daughter.
[3] Additional authors she admires are Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, Louise Meriwether, Rosa Guy, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Jean Toomer, Ralph Ellison, Gabriel García Márquez, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Terry McMillan.