Author Biography
Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Diane grew up in Philadelphia, the city she returns to as the setting for Leaving Cecil Street. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Magazine; Essence; the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine; and the anthologies Bluelight Corner, and Mending the World.
She has received numerous awards, including a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, the Zora Neale Hurston Society award for creative contribution to literature, a citation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for her portrayal of urban life as presented in Tumbling, Author of the Year award from the Go On Girl Book Club, and more.
She presently teaches fiction writing at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Greg, and sometimes her college-age twins, Taiwo, her daughter, and Kehinde, her son.
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Food Rec
Food and sharing meals play a major role in McKinney-Whetstone’s novel. One of the first meals that Johnson and Verdi shared was the leftover meatloaf and green beans that Johnson’s mother had made for her son to take back to his dorm one Friday evening. This green bean salad is reflective of their first moments of falling in love during their college days.