Introducing Denene Millner Books

Today we are happy to announce that Agate has partnered with noted author, editor, and parenting authority Denene Millner to launch Denene Millner Books, a new line that Agate will publish in its Bolden Books imprint, which is devoted to the work of African American writers. Our plan is to launch the line by publishing four titles per year in the categories of children’s books and fiction and nonfiction for young readers of different ages. The first offering from Denene Millner Books, Early Sunday Morning, will appear in February 2017. In her new contributing editor role at Agate, Millner will lead the acquisitions and editorial effort for her imprint, and also play a prominent role in the marketing and promotion effort.

Over the past two years or so, as Denene and I began discussing the idea that evolved into this new imprint, I’ve gotten to know her well as both a person and a professional, and I am immensely proud to be partnering with her this way. Denene is a writer, editor, and journalist with an uncommon range of experience in children’s and parenting-related material, as well as many other topic areas. She’s a wonderful collaborator—we’ve developed a unique business relationship that is largely the result of her very warm, open-handed approach.

Denene Millner
Denene Millner

Denene is co-author of the three-book teen series, Hotlanta, published by Scholastic (which has been optioned by Warner Brothers) and three children’s books, including My Brother Charlie, written with Holly Robinson Peete, and Miss You, Mina, the first in the popular Scholastic Candy Apple book series for tweens to feature an African American lead character. She is also the founder and editor of MyBrownBaby.com, a critically acclaimed blog that chronicles the intersection of parenting and race, which has become one of the largest websites followed by and dedicated to African American mothers online. Millner also worked as an editor for Parenting, for which she wrote a column on the ethics and etiquette of parenting, called “Ask Denene.”

Beyond the worlds of children and parenting, Denene has written or co-written 25 books in total, including four New York Times bestsellers, the best known of which is Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, co-written with Steve Harvey, which became the bestselling nonfiction book of 2009. In 2016, she will publish the latest two books she has co-authored— a Taraji P. Henson memoir and Cookie Johnson’s Believing In MagicHer book-writing career began in 1997 with her bestselling advice book, The Sistahs’ Rules. Her novels, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, In Love & War, and A Love Story, were co-written with her Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist husband Nick Chiles–the co-author of the 2014 Agate Bolden title Justice While Black. Her novel The Vow, co-authored with Angela Burt-Murray and Mitzi Miller, debuted in 2015 as the Lifetime Television movie, With This Ring, starring Regina P. Hall, Jill Scott, and Gabrielle Union. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and their two daughters.

Questions? For more information, contact Jacqueline Jarik at Agate–[email protected].

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