On October 18th, 1951, Terry McMillan was born in Port Huron, Michigan. She grew up the oldest in a family of five children and left home for California at age seventeen. In 1978, McMillan graduated from UC-Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in journalism and began pursuing a master's degree in film at Columbia University in New York the following year. McMillan's professor from UC-Berkeley, Ishmael Reed, had convinced her to pursue a career in writing. McMillan left Columbia University without completing her studies to join the Harlem Writer's Guild. McMillan's first novel Mama, was a semi autobiographical portrayal of a family of five children being raised by a single mother during the '60s and '70s. McMillan followed this first novel with bestsellers including Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Check out one of Terry McMillan's books at the library today!
