Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, won the Crook's Corner Book Prize, and was the recipient of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her second novel, The Revisioners, was a national bestseller, recipient of an NAACP Image Award, and a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.