Gurley-Highgate, Hilda

PERSONAL:

Married George Highgate; children: two. Education: University of Virginia, law degree.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Detroit, MI. Office—Wayne County Corp., 415 Clifford St., 7th Fl., Detroit, MI 48226. Agent—Imprint Agency, 5 W. 101st St., Ste. 8B, New York, NY 10025. E-mail—sapphiresgrave@iwon.com; hgurley@co.wayne.mi.us.

CAREER:

Wayne County Corp., Detroit, MI, environmental attorney. State Bar of Michigan, vice chair of Environmental Ethics Committee. Also licensed pharmacist, musician, singer, and performance poet. Gives readings from her works; public speaker.

MEMBER:

National Bar Association (chair for Energy, Environmental, and Public Utilities section).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Quill and Pen Award, American Writers Fellowship, 2003, for Sapphire's Grave.

WRITINGS:

Sapphire's Grave (novel), Doubleday (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Hilda Gurley-Highgate is something of a renaissance woman, working in a variety of fields. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia law school and works as an environmental attorney in Detroit, Michigan. In addition, she is a licensed pharmacist and an accomplished musician, singer, performance poet, and writer. Her first book, Sapphire's Grave, won the Quill and Pen Award in 2003 and was nominated for the African American Literary Award Show Open Book Award in 2004. The book examines the life of a slave named Sapphire and traces her descendants, emphasizing the importance of the value of roots in the African American culture, particularly for women. Gurley-Highgate also wanted to illustrate the types of characters who were responsible for the development of many modern-day black female stereotypes. In an interview for the GRITS Online Reading Club, she stated: "Key to these images being finally laid to rest is black women's refusal to be defined by other people's labels, other people's judgments, other people's interpretations of our actions." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews wrote: "The incantatory style is a bit over the top, but, still, ‘Sapphire's Grave’ is a lyric paean to black women through the centuries." Vanessa Bush, in a review for Booklist, remarked that the author's "writing is vivid and powerful as she details the spiritual and emotional consciousness of these women," and Denolyn Carroll, writing for the Black Issues Book Review, remarked that the "use of poetic language, pace and rhythm engages the reader on a deeply spiritual level."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, January-February, 2003, Denolyn Carroll, review of Sapphire's Grave, p. 32.

Booklist, December 1, 2002, Vanessa Bush, review of Sapphire's Grave, p. 644.

Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2006, "People in Business" column.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2002, review of Sapphire's Grave, p. 1553.

Library Journal, November 1, 2002, Ann Burns, review of Sapphire's Grave, p. 110.

Publishers Weekly, November 18, 2002, review of Sapphire's Grave, p. 44.

ONLINE

GRITS Online Reading Club,http://www.thegritsbookclub.com/ (April 14, 2007), interview of Hilda Gurley-Highgate.

Imprint Agency Web site,http://imprintagency.com/ (April 14, 2007), author biography.

MyShelf.com Web Site,http://www.myshelf.com/ (April 14, 2007), review of Sapphire's Grave.

Newsobserver Online,http://www.newsobserver.com/ (April 5, 2007), Julia Ridley Smith, review of Sapphire's Grave.