Malaika Adero, founder and creative director of Up South, Inc. has been engaged in the arts and letters all of her professional and personal life, as a writer, an African folkloric dancer and visual artist. Born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, her mother was a pianist. Her father and two uncles shared a passion for painting and sculpture. She attended Clark College and Atlanta University and it was in Atlanta that she began to develop the skills and experience that resulted in a career in book publishing. She was also in the inaugural class of Howard University’s Book Publishing Institute in 1980.

Now a Vice President, Senior Editor at Atria Books, a division of Simon, she acquires nonfiction and fiction trade book. She works with authors such as Tananarive Due, T.D. Jakes, Zane, Sheila Weller, Colin Channer, Farai Chideya, Reyna Grande, Damon Wayans, Kanye West, Tavis Smiley, Maryse Conde, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Victoria Rowell, Mikki Taylor, Indu Sundaresan and more.

She is author of Up South: Stories, Studies and Letters of This Century’s African American Migrations and coauthor of Speak, So You Can Speak Again: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, coauthored with Dr. Lucy Hurston. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals, most recently in Let Loose On the World: Celebrating the 75th Birthday of Amiri Baraka and 44 on 44th edited by Lita Hooper and Michael Simanga.