Rhodes is also the author of Soul Step, Treasure Island: Runaway Gold, Paradise on Fire, Towers Falling and the celebrated Louisiana Girls Trilogy, which includes Ninth Ward, winner of the Coretta Scott King Honor Award, Sugar, and Bayou Magic.

She began college as a drama major, but switched to writing when she discovered African-American literature for the first time.

Her work has been widely translated into numerous languages including French, Romanian, German, Korean, Italian, Persian, Mandarin, and Japanese.

Her recent fiction and essays have been anthologized in Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood (ed., Berry), In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction (ed.

Gutkind), Gumbo (ed., Golden and Harris), and Children of the Night: Best Short Stories By Black Writers (ed., Naylor), along with others.