Recognized for her scholastic, artistic and athletic talents, she earned a scholarship to Temple University after graduating from Overbrook High School at the age of 15.
Ross began her novel Oreo hoping for a career in writing, and it was published in 1974 at the height of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
[3] Ross's title comes from a white and black cookie, used as an ethnic slur in slang, mastery of whose American varieties is a feature of the novel, and employs the myth of Theseus to narrate the story of a black-Jewish girl searching for, and eventually exacting vengeance on, her father.
[4] Ross also wrote articles for magazines such as Essence, Titters and Playboy, and then got work on The Richard Pryor Show.
Oreo was rediscovered and republished in 2000 by Northeastern University Press, with a new introduction by Harryette Mullen.