Early Life and Education
Many elements of Shay Youngblood's life are reflected in her fiction. Like many of her heroines, Youngblood herself was an orphan at an early age. Her mother died when she about two years old, and she was raised by a community family: grandfathers, uncles and many women with similarities to those described her books and plays. The family that raised Youngblood taught her "how to be an independent free-thinking person" and much about the art of storytelling.
Youngblood was one of the first people in her family to attend college. While earning her bachelor's degree in mass communication at Clark-Atlanta University, she participated in a service project in Haiti. Her work in Haiti heightened her awareness of the injustice suffered by poor people in many places around the world. Immediately after graduating she joined the Peace Corps, and in 1981 she served as an agricultural information officer in Dominica, in the Eastern Caribbean. Later on, in 1993, Shay earned her MFA in Creative Writing form Brown University.
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