Terry McMillan is a New York Times bestselling author of a number of novels, including Disappearing Acts, Getting to Happy, and Waiting to Exhale. She studied journalism at UC Berkeley and screenwriting at Columbia before making her fiction debut with Mama, which won both the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction Award and the American Book Award. She is also a recipient of the Essence Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in Pasadena, California.