Walker’s writing is praised for its insights on the African American struggle, with particular attention to the experiences of black women in a sexist and racist environment.  Her vast body of work includes poetry, short stories, essays, criticism and novels.  She is the author of six novels, including By the Light of My Father’s Smile and The Temple of the Familiar.  In addition, she has authored three collections of short stories, You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, In Love & Trouble and The Way Forward is With a  Broken Heart.  Her collections of essays includes In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Living by the Word, and most recently We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light in the Time of Darkness.  Walker also edited Zora Neale Hurston’s reader, I Love Myself When I am Laughing…And Then Again When I am Looking Mean and Impressive. In all, her books have sold more than ten million copies and have been translated into over two dozen languages. Walker’s newest book, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, which is edited by Valerie Boyd, will be published on April 5, 2022 by Simon and Schuster. 

Walker has participated in some of the most important movements for global change: including The Civil Rights Movement, the Hands off Cuba Movement, the Women’s Movement, The Native American and Indigenous Rights Movement and the Environmental and Animal Rights Movement.

Walker also wrote Now is the Time to Open your Heart and Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth.  In the fall of 2003, she published a book of poems and drawings titled A Poem Traveled Down My Arm.  Walker has been a long time contributing and fiction editor at Ms. Magazine.  She was also a Radcliffe Institute Fellow and has been Fannie Hurst Professor at Brandeis University and Distinguished Writer in African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  Walker is also Associate Professor of English at Yale. Read Less ^