J. California Cooper is the author of the novels Family and In Search of Satisfaction and five collections of stories: Homemade Love, the winner of the 1989 American Book Award; A Piece of Mine; The Future Has a Past; Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime; The Matter Is Life and Some Soul to Keep. She is also the author of seventeen plays and has been honored as Black Playwright of the Year. In 1988, she received the James Baldwin Writing Award and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association. She lives in California.
