Diane Oliver (1943 - 1966) was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father was a teacher and later administrator in public schools; her mother was a piano teacher. After graduating from a segregated public high school, she attended Women's College (which later became the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and was the Managing Editor of The Carolinian, the student newspaper. She published four short stories in her lifetime and two more posthumously: 'Key to the City' and 'Neighbors' published in The Sewanee Review in 1966; 'Health Service', 'Traffic Jam' and 'Mint Juleps Not Served Here' in Negro Digest in 1965, 1966 and 1967; and 'The Closet on the Top Floor' in Southern Writing in the Sixties in 1966. 'Neighbors' was a recipient of an O. Henry Award in 1967. Diane began graduate work at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and was awarded the MFA degree posthumously days after her death in a motorcycle accident in 1966, aged just 22.