In recent years, many African American writers have seen enormous success writing hip, contemporary fiction within the larger mystery, chick lit, and bildungsroman genres.  Women writers like Terry McMillan and Kimberla Lawson Roby grab their readers with stories about relationships and upwardly mobile career women.  McMillan's How Stella Got Her Groove Back was even turned into a hit movie.  Their male counterparts have also found success.  Libraries around the country had trouble keeping Omar Tyree's Flyy Girl on the shelves when it was first published in 1996. 

Walter Mosley is one of the most prolific authors in this profile.  He has excelled at writing detective novels that keep readers coming back for more.  Even President Clinton told the press he was a huge fan.  Like McMillan, Mosley found a wider audience when his novel Devil in a Blue Dress was turned into a major motion picture, this one starring Denzel Washington.

Popular African American Fiction Authors

• Campbell, Bebe Moore
• Dickey, Eric Jerome
• Harris, E. Lynn
• Hunter, Travis
• Johnson, R.M.
• Major, Marcus
• McMillan, Terry
• Morrison, Mary B.
• Mosley, Walter
• Neff, Heather
• Roby, Kimberla Lawson
• Thomas, Trisha R.
• Tyree, Omar