Meet the author

Biography

Nagueyalti was born in Atlanta, Georgia but her family moved while she was still an infant. Her preschool years were spent in Oak Ridge, and Clinton, Tennessee. When the violence over school integration erupted, her family joined the last wave of the African American migration from the South. They moved to Pico, California, now Pico-Rivera, then later to Los Angeles.  She grew up in South Central Los Angeles, better known as Watts.

Nagueyalti’s mother and father divorced when she was quite young, and she was reared by her mother and maternal grandmother who was widowed and lived with them. Her mother was an RN and her grandmother worked as a maid, sometimes live-in, sometimes not. Growing up as the only child of an only child, reading and writing were her companions.

The first poem she recalls writing was in third grade and she found a copy of it among her mother’s keepsakes when she was cleaning out her condo after her mother died in 2012. The sentiments in the poem still resonate with her today.

I Wonder

I wonder why the trees grow tall

Their great green leaves in winter fall

The purple tops of shining hills so high

With yellow flowers pointing to the sky

I wonder?

Her curriculum vitae outlines the rest of her biography, which consists mostly of school, work, and travel.

Contact Nagueyalti for more info.