Terry McMillan

Terry McMillan
Terry McMillan at the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival.
Born	(1951-10-18) October 18, 1951 Port Huron, Michigan
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Genre	Fiction
Notable works	Waiting to Exhale How Stella Got Her Groove Back Disappearing Acts

Terry McMillan (born October 18, 1951) is an American author. Her work is characterized by relatable female protagonists.

Early life

McMillan received a B.A. in journalism in 1977 from the University of California, Berkeley. She briefly attended the Master of Fine Arts program in film at Columbia University.^[1]

Career

McMillan's first book, Mama, was published in 1987.^[2] She achieved national attention in 1992 with her third novel, Waiting to Exhale. The book remained on The New York Times bestseller list for many months and by 1995 it had sold over three million copies. The novel contributed to a shift in Black popular cultural consciousness and the visibility of a female Black middle-class identity in popular culture. McMillan was credited with having introduced the interior world of Black women professionals in their thirties who are successful, alone, available, and unhappy.^[3] In 1995, the novel was adapted into a film directed by Forest Whitaker and starring Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon.

In 1998, another of McMillan's novels, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, was adapted into a film starring Angela Bassett and Taye Diggs. McMillan's novel Disappearing Acts was subsequently produced as a direct-to-cable feature, starring Wesley Snipes and Sanaa Lathan and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. In 2014, Lifetime brought McMillan's A Day Late and a Dollar Short to television audiences, starring Whoopi Goldberg and an ensemble cast featuring Ving Rhames, Tichina Arnold, Mekhi Phifer, Anika Noni Rose, and Kimberly Elise. McMillan also wrote The Interruption of Everything and Getting to Happy, the sequel to Waiting to Exhale.

Personal life

McMillan married Jonathan Plummer in 1998, the inspiration for her novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back. In December 2004, Plummer revealed to McMillan that he was gay. In March 2005, she filed for divorce.^[4] The divorce was settled for an undisclosed amount. In March 2007, McMillan sued Plummer and his lawyer for $40 million, citing an intentional strategy to embarrass and humiliate her during the divorce proceedings.^[5] McMillan eventually won a judgment of intentional infliction of emotional distress, but had withdrawn the suit before the case went to trial. Plummer was never ordered to pay the intended amount. On September 27, 2010, the two sat together with talk show host Oprah Winfrey to discuss their post-divorce relationship and partial reconciliation. Both acknowledged that he fulfilled the role of boyfriend and husband before his coming-out, although McMillan stated that "he's not my BFF."^[6]

On July 13, 2012, she sold her 7,000-square home in Danville, California, for $1,858,500.^[7]

McMillan has a son, Solomon, and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Works

• Mama. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1987. ISBN 978-0-547-52404-7. 
• Disappearing Acts. Penguin Group US. 1989. ISBN 978-1-101-65772-0. 
• Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. Penguin Books. October 1990. ISBN 978-0140116977. (Editor)
• Waiting To Exhale. Viking. May 1992. ISBN 978-0-670-83980-3. 
• How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Viking. 1996. ISBN 0451209141. 
• A Day Late and a Dollar Short. Penguin Group US. 2001. ISBN 978-1-101-20938-7. 
• It's OK if You're Clueless: and 23 More Tips for the College Bound. Viking Adult. March 2006. ISBN 978-1419397332. 
• The Interruption of Everything. Penguin Group US. May 2006. ISBN 978-1-101-20981-3. 
• Getting to Happy. Penguin Group US. 2010. ISBN 978-1-101-44294-4. 
• Who Asked You? Viking, September 2013. ISBN 978-0670-78569-8
• I Almost Forgot About You. Crown, New York. 2016. ISBN 978-1101-9025-78. 

References

Sources

• Nishikawa, Kinohi. "Romance Novel." Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey Jr. (eds), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. pp. 1411–15.

External links

• Official Web Site
• Terry McMillan at the Notable Names Database
• Interview with Terry McMillan on the Tavis Smiley Show.
• Terry McMillan at the Internet Movie Database
• Terry McMillan at the African American Literature Book Club
• "Terry McMillan Sues Her Ex", The Smoking Gun, March 22, 2007.