BARRY BECKHAM is considered one of our most innovative prose writers who has brought a variety of experiences to his work. He is a distinguished novelist and founder of the Beckham Publications Group. He has been a public relations writer for the Chase Manhattan Bank and AT&T, and a tenured English professor at Brown and Hampton Universities.

When Beckham published his first novel, My Main Mother (Walker) in 1969, he had just graduated from Brown University and was writing for the public relations office of Chase Manhattan. President David Rockefeller dubbed him Chase's "first bona fide novelist," and the New York Times Book Review hailed the work as a forerunner of "remarkable things to come."

His second novel, Runner Mack (Morrow, 1972) was selected by the New York Times as one of the year's most noteworthy books. "Beckham is a masterful writer, and his novel is an emblem of contemporary black frustration," wrote the Library Journal reviewer. "This story of an aspiring black baseball player is skillfully written and richly imaginative," declared The New York Times Book Review.

He is also the author of Double Dunk (Holloway House, 1981), the innovative autobiography of Manhattan schoolyard basketball legend Earl (the Goat) Manigault. The HBO biopic, Rebound starring Eric Lasalle and James Earl Jones is based on the Goat's life. Employing novelistic touches of scene setting and dialogue, Beckham sustains the second person point of view throughout the work--about which the Newark Star Ledger said: "Every high school and perhaps junior high school student should read."

Beckham's first novel in two decades, Will You Be Mine? takes on an old theme with a new approach. It's the distinguished novelist's stab at presenting a different kind of love story. "I wanted a black male narrator who is tender and passionate," says Beckham. "At the same time," he adds, "my main character encounters the usual absurdities that come with being a black male in twentieth century America."

His narrator is a 50-year-old African-American whose third wife, Chinita-twenty years younger--has just died after a painful bout with "the disease that keeps growing." Caught in Washington, DC traffic and listening to talk radio as he drives toward his beach house, the narrator has the perfect audience--a sympathetic Teddy bear.

Beckham taught at Brown University for 17 years and directed the graduate writing program before going to Hampton University in 1987. With a Xerox Foundation grant, Beckham directed the country's first summer high school writer's workshop for black students at Hampton. While at Brown, he edited the first of five editions of the Black Student's Guide to Colleges (Dutton, 1982)--also the first of its kind. His other guides include the Black Student's Guide to Scholarships and the College Selection Workbook.

A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Beckham is on the board of the Author's League Fund and the George Polk Awards, and has served on the boards of PEN American Center and the Author's Guild. He was one of the judges of the 2005 Hurston Wright Foundation Award for the best novel by an African American. He has published prose in Esquire, Black Enterprise, Crisis, the New York Times, Educational Record, the Washington Post, American Visions, and elsewhere.

Beckham is married to the former Monica Scott, an attorney in Washington, DC.