Kai Jackson Issa

Hello and welcome to my author's page!

I live the City of Decatur, Georgia (not be confused with Decatur, Georgia)-- which incidentally has a large population of writers. I grew up on the south side of Chicago on a busy street called Jeffery Boulevard, where I loved to sit on my front porch and daydream, making up stories about all the cars and people passing by.

I wanted to be a writer ever since the second grade, when I wrote my first story about a lonely purple Pegasus. My teacher's name was Mrs. Wilson and she gave me an A on that story. Thank you, Mrs. Wilson!

I've been many different things in my life: a professor, a college dean, an award-winning children's book author, a speech writer for college presidents and nonprofit leaders, a fundraising writer, an editor of an encyclopedia on a major civil rights leader. Add to that being a poster of outrageous FB content, a crafter of love notes to my amazing husband of 22 years, a heavy red marker on my kids essays and papers (they love me anyway!), and the list goes on. . .

I went to school for a long, long time so I could think and write deeply about subjects relating to African American literature, American culture, and women's studies. I attended Sarah Lawrence College, a premier incubator of writers, including one of my heroes, Alice Walker. I earned my Ph.D. in the Humanities from Emory University, writing my dissertation on Queen Mother Audley Moore, a New York City activist who was unafraid to be herself, to challenge authority and to speak boldy against injustice. In her lifetime, she was known fondly as "the Mayor of Harlem."

The common denominator here? Writing.

It's who I am. It's what I do.