Story by CARRIE STETLER
From 19th-century preachers to 20th-century playwrights, 118 authors are included in "The Creativity and Imagination of African American Women Writers in New Jersey," in the second floor gallery of the Newark Public Library on Washington Street through March 3.
All were born in New Jersey or lived here for at least 15 years.
The Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, who taught for nearly two decades at Princeton University, was asked to be part of the exhibit but didn't respond, says curator Sibyl Moses.
Here's a sampling of those included:
* Jarena Lee (1783-1849): Born in Cape May to free black parents, Lee was a Methodist preacher who published "The Life and Religious Experience of Mrs. Jarena Lee" in 1836. It recounts her spiritual calling and her cross-country travels as a preacher.
* Esther "Hetty" Saunders (1793-1862): Saunders was a poet from Salem County whose work was published after her death. The daughter of an escaped slave from Delaware, she was reared and educated by a Quaker family. Her poems include "I Love to Live Alone" and "The Hill of Age."
* Jessie Fauset (1862-1961): Known as the "midwife of the Harlem Renaissance," Fauset, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, was born in Snow Hill, Camden County. As literary editor of the influential magazine The Crisis, she promoted the careers of celebrated black authors such as Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer and Countee Cullen. Her fiction explored the lives of middle-class black women in the 1920s and 1930s.
* Marion Thompson Wright (1902-1962): An East Orange native, Thompson Wright was a pioneer in African-American history and race relations in New Jersey. Her research on integration in the Newark schools was cited in the 1954 Brown Vs. Board of Education brief submitted to the Supreme Court by the NAACP.
* Amina Baraka (born 1942) The wife of famed Newark author Amiri Baraka, Amina was born Sylvia Robinson in Charlotte, N.C. She helped found the Black Arts movement in Newark in the late 1960s and 1970s. Her works include the 1978 poetry collection "Songs for the Masses."
* Carole and Norma Jean Darden (Carole was born in 1945. Norma Jean doesn't reveal her age): The Darden sisters wrote the best-selling cookbook "Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine," a family history told through recipes. Norma Jean was a successful New York fashion model. Carole owns a New York catering company and two Harlem restaurants, Miss Mamies and Miss Maudes.
* Ntozake Shange (born 1948): This Trenton native was born Paulette Williams. Her 1975 play "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" was a Broadway hit. She's also written poetry and novels, including "Betsy Brown" in 1985.
Published Feb. 2, 2007