Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson is the author of many books for young readers, including Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, which won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2010, and Almost to Freedom, which won a Coretta Scott King Honor for Colin Bootman’s illustrations in 2007. Vaunda is a youth services librarian at the public library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband.

To write No Crystal Stair, Vaunda spent years researching Lewis Michaux’s life. She conducted interviews, sifted through library collections, examined family archives, and interviewed those who knew Michaux. In the end though, the man’s full story (and even his date of birth) remained elusive. Only the tools of fiction could make a complete portrait.