Kalisha Buckhanon is the author of the novels Upstate (St. Martin's Press, 2005), winner of an American Library Association ALEX Award and Hurston-Wright Foundation Debut Fiction Award finalist; and Conception (St. Martin's Press, 2008), winner of a Friends of American Writers Award.Her honors include: an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award in Literary Fiction for the Upstate audiobook; the Terry McMillan Young Author Award at the National Book Club Conference; an Honorable Mention in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Awards at George Mason University; a Zora Neale Hurston/ Bessie Head Fiction Award at the Gwendolyn Brooks Black Literature and Writing Conference for her short story "Card Parties"; and an Andrew Mellon/Mays Foundation Minority Undergraduate Fellowship for Humanities Research. She is part of the permanent African-American History exhibit of the Kankakee County Historical Society Museum for contributions to her native Kankakee, Illinois.Her writing has appeared in such publications as Michigan Quarterly Review, London Independent and Black Issues Book Review. She has taught creative writing, humanities and English through PEN American Center's Prison Writing Program, Kankakee Community College and many youth programs, summer arts camps, schools and library initiatives. She is a member of the Sisters in Crime organization of women writers and Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. Kalisha has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from The New School in New York City, and both a B.A. and M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.