25 Facts About Walter Mosley

Walter Ellis Mosley was born on January 12,1952 and is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction.

Walter Mosley has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.

Walter Mosley's father, Leroy Mosley, was an African American from Louisiana who was a supervising custodian at a Los Angeles public school.

Walter Mosley had worked as a clerk in the segregated US army, during the Second World War.

Walter Mosley's parents tried to marry in 1951, and while the union was legal in California, where they were living, no one would give them a marriage license.

Walter Mosley graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School, in 1970.

Walter Mosley later became more highly politicized and outspoken about racial inequalities in the US, which are a context of much of his fiction.

Walter Mosley went through a "long-haired hippie" phase, drifting around Santa Cruz and Europe.

Walter Mosley dropped out of Goddard College, a liberal arts college in Plainfield, Vermont, and then, he earned a political science degree at Johnson State College.

Walter Mosley moved to New York, in 1981, and he met the dancer and choreographer, Joy Kellman, whom he married in 1987.

Walter Mosley says that he identifies as both African-American and Jewish, with strong feelings for both groups.

Walter Mosley started writing at 34 and claims to have written every day, since, penning more than forty books and often publishing two books a year.

Walter Mosley has written in a variety of fiction categories, including mystery and afrofuturist science fiction, as well as nonfiction politics.

Walter Mosley's fame increased in 1992 when presidential candidate Bill Clinton, a fan of murder mysteries, named Walter Mosley as one of his favorite authors.

Walter Mosley made publishing history, in 1997, by forgoing an advance to give the manuscript of Gone Fishin' to a small, independent publisher, Black Classic Press in Baltimore, run by former Black Panther Paul Coates.

Walter Mosley's first published book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the basis of a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington, and the following year, a 10-part abridgement of the novel by Margaret Busby, read by Paul Winfield, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Walter Mosley has served on the board of directors of the National Book Awards.

Walter Mosley is on the board of the TransAfrica Forum.

In Moment magazine, Johanna Neuman writes that black literary circles questioned whether Walter Mosley should be considered a "black author".

Walter Mosley has said that he prefers to be called a novelist.

In 2019, after working in the writers room for the television series Snowfall, Walter Mosley was hired, by Alex Kurtzman, for a similar role on the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.

CBS told Walter Mosley this was usually a fireable offence but said no further action would be taken and asked that he not use the word, again, outside of a script.

Walter Mosley chose to leave the series, quitting without informing Kurtzman, and he explained his decision in an op-ed for The New York Times, in September 2019.

Walter Mosley did not identify Discovery as the series he was working on in the op-ed, but this was confirmed, in reports on the op-ed, shortly after its release.