Sheri Booker is an American author, poet, spoken word artist, and teacher. She is the author of ''Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home,'' a memoir about the near-decade she spent working at an inner-city funeral home in West Baltimore. Following the book's publication, she won an

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

Image Award in the category of "Outstanding Literary Work from a Debut Author." She was nominated for the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the category of nonfiction.

Early life and education

Booker grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. She began working at the Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore in 1997, when she was 15, partly to help her cope with her grief after the death of her aunt. Shortly thereafter, her mother was diagnosed with multiple

myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, a ...

. Booker attended

Notre Dame of Maryland University Notre Dame of Maryland University is a private Catholic university in Baltimore, Maryland. NDMU offers certificate, undergraduate, and graduate programs for women and men. History The Roman Catholic academic/educational religious congregation ...

, where she earned a bachelor's degree in political science. She received a master's degree in creative nonfiction from

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1885 as a Nonsectarian, nonsecterian Women's colleges in the United States, ...

Career

While studying for her master's degree, Booker began writing the memoir, ''Nine Years Under: Coming of Age'' in an Inner-City Funeral Home, which was published in 2013. Her other published works include ''One Woman, One Hustle'' (2003) and the video book ''I Am the Poem'' (2011). In 2007, she lived in South Africa, where she helped teach young African women the fundamental skills of journalism and worked as an editorial assistant for an international literary magazine.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Sheri Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Writers from Baltimore NAACP Image Awards American women poets American women memoirists 21st-century American memoirists 21st-century American women