Heather Neff
Early Life
Heather Neff was born January 29, 1957 in Akron Ohio, to an Episcopal clergyman and a music teacher. In 1964, her and her family moved to an all-white suburb in Akron. As the only black student in her elementary school, she often found herself explaining the Civil Rights Movement to her teacher and classmates. This made her aware of the racial divisions between blacks and whites. Ultimately, this peaked her interests in African American literature and history.
At the age of 13 her family moved to Detroit, Michigan. She graduated from Lewis Cass Technical High School in 1975 with a degree in Music.
College Life
Dr. Neff went on to attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While there, she became active in the women study program. She was also responsible for running a film cooperative which gave way to her dream of traveling the world. In 1978, she graduated from the University of Michigan with high honors. Soon after, she moved to Paris to study French at the Sorbonne. Due to her studies in France, she increased her perspective on race and culture, which in turn gave her a new understanding of her own heritage as an African American.
From 1983 to 1990 she lived in Switzerland, where she studied at the University of Basel. Afterwards, in 1987 she then studied at the University of Zurich; she became licensed in English Literature and Linguistics, Comparative Literature and French Linguistics. In 1990 she received her Doctorate for her dissertation Redemption Songs: The voice of protest in the poetry of Afro-Americans.
Achievements
In 2000, she was given Eastern Michigan University’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the university’s highest Instructional honor.
In 2000, she wrote her first book Blackgammon. A book about two African American women living in Europe, Dr. Neff said that “this book reflects many of the racial and cultural issues that she experienced while living in Europe.
Following Backgammon, Neff published Wisdom in 2002. Wisdom is about a woman with ovarian cancer who travels to St. Croix to learn about her family background. This book was named a Honor Book by the American Library Association’s Black Caucus.
Dr. Neff published her next book, Accident of Birth, in 2004. The novel delves into the love shared between an African American women and a Liberian student. The book also explores various aspects of political issues that still prevalent today.
In July of 2005, Neff published Haarlem, a book set in the Netherlands. Haarlem tells the story of an African American man in search of his mother. The title character fights his addiction to alcohol while learning about life and its struggles.
Present
Currently, Dr. Neff is a professor at Eastern Michigan University located in Ypsilanti, MI. At the university she specializes in the Literatures of the African Diaspora. At the end of November 2009, Dr. Neff will release her new book, Leila: The Weighted Silence of Memory. Heather Neff currently resides in Michigan with her husband of twenty years, her teenage daughter, and their family pet, a calico cat.
Reference
www.emich.edu/english/details.php?dep=English&ID=90
www.heatherneffbooks.com