Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Diane McKinney-Whetstone (born August 14, 1953) is an African American author and is a member of the University of Pennsylvania Creative Writing program faculty. Her works of fiction have won numerous awards, including the BCALA Literary Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. in 2005 and 2009

The second of five daughters born to Pennsylvania State Senator Paul McKinney and his wife Bessie, with an older brother and sister from her mother’s first marriage. Diane received a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. She is married to Greg Whetstone and they have twins, Taiwo, a daughter and Kehinde, a son.

McKinney-Whetstone began writing when she was 39, joining the Rittenhouse Writer's Group, founded by University of Pennsylvania instructor James Rahn. She won a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant for a 500-page first draft. Her first novel, Tumbling, was published in 1996 by William Morrow and Company.

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