Name: E. Lynn Harris
Born: June 20, 1955
Birthplace: Flint, Michigan, USA
Died: July 23, 2009
Gender Identity: Cisgender man
Pronouns: He/him
Sexual Orientation: Gay
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African American
Profession: Novelist
Years Active: 1991–2009
Genres: Fiction, LGBTQ+ Literature, Romance, Drama

Early Life 

Everette Lynn Jeter was born on June 20 1955 in Flint, Michigan to Etta Mae Williams and James Jeter who were not married at the time. When he was three years old his mother moved with him to Little Rock Arkansas where she worked as a housekeeper. His mother later married Ben Odis Harris who helped raise Lynn until his parents’ divorce when he was thirteen. He had three younger sisters and grew up helping with household chores and family responsibilities. 

During the summer before his junior year of high school, at age fifteen, he learned about his biological father and visited him several times while staying with relatives in Michigan. His father died in an automobile accident the following spring. As a child Lynn found refuge and inspiration in the Little Rock public library where he immersed himself in the works of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou. To earn money for clothes and school supplies he held jobs at the Little Rock Zoo Baskin-Robbins Arkansas Paper Company and the M. M. Cohn department store. He attended Forest Heights Junior High and Hall High School as one of the first African American students in those schools breaking racial barriers in Little Rock public education. 

Education 

He completed his secondary schooling at Hall High School in Little Rock, graduating in 1973. He was one of the first African American students to attend both Forest Heights Junior High and Hall High School. His presence helped pave the way for further integration of the Little Rock public school system. 

After high school he enrolled at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in the mid-1970s. He pursued a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and graduated with honors in 1977. At a time when few Black students were visible in campus leadership, he broke new ground by becoming the first Black male cheerleader in Razorback history. He also earned election as the first Black editor of the campus yearbook, demonstrating his journalistic skill and commitment to student life. 

In addition to these milestones, he was elected president of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity chapter on campus. In that role he organized community outreach events and mentored younger fraternity members. His time at the university not only honed his reporting and writing abilities but also deepened his understanding of leadership, public speaking, and cultural advocacy within an academic setting. 

Corporate Career and Turning Point 

He began his professional life as a corporate sales representative following his graduation in 1977. Over the next thirteen years he worked first for IBM and then for AT&T and Hewlett-Packard, honing skills in negotiation, client relations and public speaking. His territory took him from Dallas to New York City to Washington DC and finally to Atlanta where he cultivated relationships with business leaders and learned to navigate the high-pressure environment of Fortune 500 companies. Despite outward success, he carried the secret of his sexuality, an internal conflict that fueled mounting depression and at times drove him to drink heavily. 

In August of 1990, while living in Washington DC, he reached a breaking point. Overwhelmed by despair he attempted to end his life by consuming champagne, vodka and sleeping pills. He survived the attempt and entered intensive therapy with a Howard University physician who encouraged him to pursue his long-held dream of writing. Embracing sobriety and the support of counseling, Harris purchased a personal computer and began drafting the story that would become his debut novel. 

Leaving the corporate world behind, he resigned his sales position to devote himself fully to writing. The transition was radical: he assembled printed copies of Invisible Life in his home, loaded them into the trunk of his car and personally delivered them to Black-owned bookstores and beauty salons. That hands-on marketing approach led to unexpected local buzz, a publishing contract with Doubleday and the launch of a bestselling literary career that would span more than a decade. 

Marketing Breakthrough 

He took an unconventional path to reach readers when he self published Invisible Life in 1991. He arranged for five thousand copies to be printed locally then loaded them into the trunk of his car and personally delivered them to Black owned bookstores and beauty salons in Atlanta. In each salon he inserted a handwritten note that invited patrons to ask their local bookstore to stock his book if they enjoyed it. 

Word of mouth spread quickly as salon owners and stylists recommended the novel to clients. One doctor who ran an AIDS education program for minority communities in Arkansas received a complimentary copy and called Harris to order one hundred and fifty additional copies for distribution in his outreach work. This early institutional interest validated Harris’s grassroots marketing approach and generated local buzz that reached beyond the typical audience for fiction. 

The success of these hand to hand sales caught the attention of a sales representative from Doubleday’s paperback division. That representative purchased reprint rights and arranged for a trade paperback release through Anchor Books in 1994. Soon after Harris secured a three book agreement for his next titles including Just As I Am. The mass market release benefited from Doubleday’s national distribution network while Harris continued to cultivate reader enthusiasm through in person readings that felt more like family reunions than traditional author events. He greeted fans, signed copies, and invited them to share personal stories of how his characters inspired them to live more openly. 

That combination of ambitious self publishing techniques and major publisher support transformed Harris from a corporate sales representative with a dream into a bestselling author whose marketing model became a case study in author led promotions. 

Literary Career 

He launched his writing career in 1991 when he self-published Invisible Life, a coming-of-age novel in which the protagonist Raymond Tyler navigates his emerging bisexuality against the backdrop of college life. Harris personally distributed five thousand copies to Black-owned bookstores and beauty salons in Atlanta, using handwritten notes to encourage readers to ask their local bookstores to stock the title. This grassroots campaign led to widespread word-of-mouth buzz and prompted a Doubleday paperback sales representative to acquire the reprint rights in 1994. Invisible Life then became the first in a remarkable series of ten consecutive novels to reach The New York Times bestseller list, establishing Harris as a major voice in popular African-American fiction. 

His second novel Just As I Am appeared in 1995 and won the Blackboard Novel of the Year Award. In 1996 he published And This Too Shall Pass, which marked his first appearance on The New York Times bestseller list. His fourth novel If This World Were Mine was released in 1997 and honored with the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Over the next decade Harris continued to explore themes of love, identity and community in works such as Abide with Me in 1999, Not a Day Goes By in 2000, Any Way the Wind Blows in 2001 and A Love of My Own in 2002. In 2003 he published What Becomes of the Brokenhearted: A Memoir and edited the anthology Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing which won a Lambda Literary Award for Anthologies. 

Harris returned to fiction with I Say a Little Prayer in 2006 debuting at number three on The New York Times bestseller list. His penultimate novel Just Too Good to Be True was published in 2008 and his final lifetime release Basketball Jones appeared in 2009. Posthumous titles include Mama Dearest in 2009, In My Father’s House in 2010 and No One in the World in 2012. His novels sold more than three million copies worldwide and his public readings were known for their familial atmosphere. 

Works 
• Invisible Life (1991 self-published; 1994 mass-market) 
• Just As I Am (1995) 
• And This Too Shall Pass (1996) 
• If This World Were Mine (1997) 
• Abide with Me (1999) 
• Not a Day Goes By (2000) 
• Money Can’t Buy Me Love (short story contribution in Got to Be Real anthology, 2001) 
• Any Way the Wind Blows (2001) 
• A Love of My Own (2002) 
• What Becomes of the Brokenhearted: A Memoir (2003) 
• Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing (editor, 2004) 
• I Say a Little Prayer (2006) 
• Just Too Good to Be True (2008) 
• Basketball Jones (2009) 
• Mama Dearest (posthumous, 2009) 
• In My Father’s House (posthumous, 2010)
• No One in the World (posthumous, 2012)

Style and Themes 

E Lynn Harris’s prose has a conversational tone that captures the rhythms of Black vernacular speech and the nuances of everyday dialogue, giving his characters a vivid sense of authenticity. He wove slang and cultural references drawn from popular media and community life into his narratives, grounding his stories in real world settings and honoring how people speak when they feel most themselves. 

A defining motif in his work is the experience of men living on the down low or navigating closeted sexualities within African American communities at a time when those stories were rarely told in mainstream fiction. Harris explored the loneliness and pain that secrecy can cause alongside the hope and liberation of self acceptance. His characters endure heartbreak and personal growth in plots that balance dramatic tension with threads of optimism, showing how love, friendship and community support foster healing and transformation. 

Harris’s novels appealed to a wide audience. Straight Black women were drawn to his nuanced portrayals of relationships and community bonds, while gay readers saw aspects of their own lives reflected for the first time in popular literature. He often structured his plots around love triangles and coming of age journeys, yet he consistently highlighted the role of strong women as friends, mentors and guardians. This emphasis on supportive networks underscored his belief that resilience emerges from collective care as much as from individual courage. 

At his public readings, Harris recreated an atmosphere akin to family gatherings. Laughter, tears and storytelling blended into celebrations of shared experience. Fans testified that his openness about mental health, addiction and sexuality gave them the courage to confront their own challenges and to live more authentically. By demonstrating that stories of marginalized lives could achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success, Harris opened doors for future generations of Black LGBTQ writers. 

Teaching and Journalism 

In the fall of 2003 he returned to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville as an instructor in the Department of English. He taught courses in literature and creative writing that focused on contemporary Black authors and on Black women writers. He invited published authors to serve as guest speakers in his classes so that students could engage directly with living voices in Black literature. His commitment to mentorship extended beyond the classroom as he held office hours to review student work and offer guidance on publication strategies. 

Alongside his teaching duties Harris served as cheer coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks squad. He drew on his own experience as the first Black male cheerleader in Razorback history to train and inspire student athletes. His coaching emphasized teamwork, discipline and positive representation of the university on and off the field. 

Beyond campus life Harris built a reputation as a sought after lecturer. He delivered talks and workshops at colleges and universities across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast. His presentations covered topics such as writing authentic dialogue, navigating the publishing industry and exploring intersectional identities in fiction. Audiences responded to his blend of craft advice and personal storytelling that underscored the power of narrative to foster empathy and social change. 

In addition to his academic work Harris contributed journalism and essays to major national publications. He wrote feature stories and commentary for Sports Illustrated, profiling athletes whose lives intersected with wider cultural issues. He penned cultural criticism and personal essays for Essence and for the Sunday Magazine section of The Washington Post. His book reviews and author interviews appeared in The New York Times Book Review. He covered regional arts and culture for The Atlanta Journal Constitution and penned columns on queer life for The Advocate. Through these varied outlets he reached diverse readerships, bringing attention to overlooked voices and topics in sports, literature and LGBTQ communities. 

Honors and Awards 

In 1995 Harris earned the Blackboard Novel of the Year Award for Just As I Am in recognition of its moving portrayal of love and identity within the African American community. Two years later he received the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence for If This World Were Mine, celebrating his ability to capture the depth and complexity of Black gay experience. In 2001 Any Way the Wind Blows brought him a second Blackboard Novel of the Year Award and in 2002 A Love of My Own secured its own Blackboard honor, further cementing his reputation for honest, compassionate storytelling. 

The University of Arkansas recognized his professional achievements in 1999 with a Citation of Distinguished Alumni and in 2000 he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame for his pioneering contributions to literature. In 2005 Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing won the Lambda Literary Award for Anthologies, acknowledging Harris’s role in amplifying a quarter century of diverse voices. He also received the Sprague Todes Literary Award as well as a Harvey Milk Honorary Diploma and the Silas Hunt Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement from the University of Arkansas, honors that celebrated both his literary accomplishments and his advocacy for LGBTQ visibility. 

In June 2019 Harris was posthumously inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, affirming his status as a trailblazer whose work transformed the landscape of American fiction. 

By Date 
• 1995 Citation of Blackboard Novel of the Year Award for Just As I Am 
• 1997 James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence for If This World Were Mine 
• 1999 Citation of Distinguished Alumni, University of Arkansas 
• 2000 Induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame 
• 2001 Blackboard Novel of the Year Award for Any Way the Wind Blows 
• 2002 Blackboard Novel of the Year Award for A Love of My Own 
• 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Anthologies for Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing 
• Sprague Todes Literary Award 
• Harvey Milk Honorary Diploma 
• Silas Hunt Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement, University of Arkansas 
• 2019 Induction on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn 

Reception and Impact 

His novels resonated with a broad readership and sold more than three million copies worldwide. His debut work generated grassroots enthusiasm that carried into mainstream success as his stories reached the New York Times bestseller list ten times in a row. Critics praised his authentic voice and emotional honesty. Reviewers noted how he brought to life characters whose struggles with identity faith and intimacy felt both specific to Black LGBTQ experience and universally human . 

Readers often described his book signings as communal celebrations rather than typical author events. Fans attended in large numbers sharing laughter tears and personal testimonies of how his work inspired them to live openly. He received letters from closeted men who credited his novels with giving them courage to come out and from straight Black women who felt seen and uplifted by his nuanced portrayals of friendship and romance . 

Harris’s success demonstrated that stories of Black gay and bisexual men could achieve both critical acclaim and commercial viability in popular fiction. His widespread appeal challenged publishing industry assumptions about marketability of LGBTQ narratives in African American literature. Publishers and new authors took note of his achievement and followed with increased representation of queer Black voices in fiction and memoir. 

Beyond his own books Harris fostered community through his anthology work and mentorship. His edited collection Freedom in This Village traced twenty-five years of Black gay men’s writing and became a touchstone for scholars and readers exploring the field’s evolution. Emerging writers cited his encouragement and example as a catalyst for pursuing publication. Organizations such as the Lambda Literary Foundation recognized his contributions by inviting him to speak at events and by honoring his legacy in their programming. 

In academic circles his work is studied for its intersectional exploration of race sexuality and gender. Courses in African American literature LGBTQ studies and popular culture include his novels on reading lists. His candid treatment of mental health addiction and the down-low phenomenon has informed scholarly discourse on privacy power and stigma in marginalized communities. 

His posthumous induction on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn in 2019 affirmed his impact on American culture and queer history. That recognition on the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising underscored his role as a pioneer whose storytelling expanded the boundaries of who gets to be seen in literature. 

Death 

Everette Lynn Harris died on July 23 2009 while in Los Angeles for a business meeting. Late that evening he became ill in his room at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Hotel staff discovered him unconscious and summoned emergency medical personnel. He was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. His publicist Laura Gilmore confirmed the news the following morning and said that the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office would conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death . 

The coroner’s report released several days later identified the cause of death as heart disease complicated by atherosclerosis and high blood pressure. He was fifty four years old at the time of his passing. The announcement noted that he was survived by his mother and three younger sisters who had supported him throughout his life and career . 

News of his death prompted an outpouring of remembrance from fans fellow authors and literary organizations. The Lambda Literary Foundation and other groups honored his legacy by sharing personal stories of how his work gave readers courage to embrace their identities and by reaffirming his role as a pioneer who broadened the representation of Black gay and bisexual men in popular fiction . 

Entire Bibliography 

Novels 
• 1991 Invisible Life (self-published; reissued trade paperback by Anchor Books 1994) 
• 1995 Just As I Am 
• 1996 And This Too Shall Pass 
• 1997 If This World Were Mine 
• 1999 Abide with Me 
• 2000 Not a Day Goes By 
• 2001 Any Way the Wind Blows 
• 2002 A Love of My Own 
• 2006 I Say a Little Prayer 
• 2008 Just Too Good to Be True 
• 2009 Basketball Jones 

Memoir 
• 2003 What Becomes of the Brokenhearted: A Memoir 

Anthology and Short-Story Contribution 
• 2000 “Money Can’t Buy Me Love” (short story in Got to Be Real – 4 Original Love Stories anthology) 
• 2004 Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing (editor) 

Posthumous Publications 
• 2009 Mama Dearest 
• 2010 In My Father’s House 
• 2012 No One in the World 

Sources 

• Ollison, Rashod D. “Common Bonds.” Arkansas Times, February 23 2001 
• Foxxe, Austin. “A Visible Life: Superstar Novelist E. Lynn Harris Talks about His New Memoir.” The Advocate, July 8 2003 
• Koon, David. “Being E. Lynn.” Arkansas Times, August 1 2003 
• Parks, Michelle. “Author’s Teaching Stint Is Filling Him with Gratitude, Book Ideas.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 11 2006 
• McLellan, Dennis. “E. Lynn Harris Dies at 54; Bestselling Author Broke Barriers Writing about Gay Black Characters.” Los Angeles Times, July 25 2009 
• CBC News. “U.S. Author E. Lynn Harris Dies at 54.” CBC News, July 24 2009 
• Weber, Bruce. “E. Lynn Harris, Who Wrote of Gay Black Men’s Lives, Dies at 54.” The New York Times, July 25 2009 
• Dean, Terrance; Hardy, James Earl; Clay, Stanley Bennett. Visible Lives: Three Stories in Tribute to E. Lynn Harris. Kensington Books, 2010 
• Rawles, Timothy. “National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to Be Unveiled at Historic Stonewall Inn.” San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, June 19 2019