Shay Youngblood
Literary Wanderer
“She could and would do anything that her artistic spirit told her to do,” wrote renowned author Tayari Jones of her friend, Shay Youngblood. “Shave your head? Shave your head! She wanted everyone to be free in the way they lived and the way they loved.” Shay Youngblood’s work as a playwright, novelist, and short story writer earned her the Pushcart Prize for fiction, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and several NAACP Theater Awards.
Born in Columbus, Georgia, in October 1959, Sharon Ellen “Shay” Youngblood was handed a deeply challenging script early on. Orphaned by the time she was two, she could have easily fallen through the cracks of a broken system. Instead, she was swept up by a vibrant, fiercely loving community of grandmothers, great-aunts, and neighborhood women. Youngblood called them her “Big Mamas.” They raised her and, more than that, they mentored her in the art of resilience, teaching her that the greatest gift you can offer someone is a safe place to belong and a voice to tell their truth.
Youngblood took that front-porch wisdom and spun it into literary gold. When she wrote The Big Mama Stories (1989) and adapted it into her celebrated play, Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery (1994), she wasn’t just entertaining audiences—she was inviting them in for a glass of sweet ice tea and a slice of profound honesty. She understood that brilliant communication is not about talking at your audience, it’s about connecting with them. Her words possessed that rare sparkle that makes you feel like the story was crafted just for you.
Armed with a degree from Clark Atlanta University and an unquenchable curiosity, she took her southern roots global. She served in the Peace Corps in the Caribbean nation of Dominica, lived as a fearless expatriate in France, and earned an MFA from Brown University. Her acclaimed novel, Black Girl in Paris (2000), became a touchstone for a generation, proving that when you deliver an authentic, courageous experience, your impact knows no borders. She was a true ambassador of human connection. In Flying Blind (2013), Youngblood depicted travel as a means to self-understanding and personal fulfillment.
Though her plays were staged in theaters across the country, Atlanta was undoubtedly the site of the greatest number of Youngblood productions. Between the 1988 and 2010 seasons, Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre was the venue for two different productions of Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, as well as performances of Amazing Grace, Square Blues, and Talking Bones. She passed away on June 11, 2024, at the age of 64, following a courageous battle with ovarian cancer.
After her death, fellow Brown alumnus Dan Jones wrote in a 2024 issue of Brown Alumni Magazine, “Shay showed me the heart has no maximum capacity, and that life lived bravely will open you to that vast truth. So, open to a new page. If it is full, read deeply. If it is blank, start dreaming. There is light, yet.”
Shay Youngblood was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2026.
