Trailblazing author and publisher Tina McElroy Ansa dead at 74

As the first Black person to work at The Atlanta Constitution, Tina McElroy Ansa paved the way for generations of Black storytellers.

Tina McElroy Ansa, the celebrated author, journalist, and trailblazer whose vivid storytelling gave voice to the beauty, complexity, and resilience of Black Southern life, has joined the ancestors. 

On September 10, 2024, the author died at 74 in her home on the coast of Georgia. Following her unexpected passing, McElroy Ansa’s good friend Wanda Lloyd, whom she met as a freshman at Spelman College, penned a Facebook post announcing the news. 

“It is with immeasurable sadness and a shattered heart that I am sharing the news of the passing of Tina McElroy Ansa, my sister-friend since we were paired as roommates during our freshman year at Spelman College. I share this on behalf of Tina’s family.” the post read. “Tina was an award-winning novelist, journalist, writing doula, supporter of the vast number of her “good lil schoolgirls,” founder of the Sea Island Writers Retreat, publisher of DownSouth Press, storyteller, public speaker, podcaster, an editor and an avid gardener. She was a champion for her adopted community of St. Simons Island, Georgia, and she loved her hometown of Macon Georgia.” 

Born in Macon, Georgia, in 1949, McElroy Ansa was the youngest of Walter J. and Nellie McElroy’s five children. In 1971, she and Lloyd graduated from the women’s HBCU as English majors. She began her storytelling career as a copy editor at The Atlanta Constitution, where she became the first Black woman to join the publication’s editorial team. After transitioning from copy editor to reporter to features editor, McElroy Ansa decided to take a leave from journalism to write her first novel, “Baby of the Family.” 

Inspired by the stories and experiences she heard on the front porch growing up, McElroy Ansa’s writing weaved generations of family, spirit, and tradition into narratives that spoke directly to the essence of the Black Southern experience. Through her sharp prose and deep exploration of family, culture, and community, she helped shape a new narrative for Black women in fiction. 

“She was in the wave of women in the 1980s and ‘90s writing African American literature,” Lloyd told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

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After her debut novel won the New York Times Notable Book of the Year award in 1989, McElroy Ansa went on to write “Ugly Ways,” “The Hand I Fan With,” “You Know Better” and “Taking After Mudear: A Novel.” Beyond her own writing, the veteran journalist-turned-author was passionate about supporting other Black writers. In 2007, she founded DownSouth Press to publish and promote “the literature of African-American people that will enrich, enlighten and edify the world.”

Similarly, in 2004, McElroy Ansa launched the Sea Island Writers Retreat, an annual retreat designed to help emerging and established writers improve their skills in fiction, nonfiction, memoir writing, and editing.  

In addition to being a writer, publisher, and mentor, McElroy Ansa was also a wife. In 1979, she married cinematographer Jonée Ansa, with whom she lived until his passing in 2020. Before her death, McElroy Ansa was reportedly working on her sixth novel, a nonfiction book entitled “Secrets of a Bogart Queen,” and an October film festival celebrating the 100th birthday of Harrington School, the first school for African American children on St. Simons, Georgia.  

According to Lloyd, McElroy Ansa “was a leader in the writing community and a friend to more people than we can possibly imagine.”

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