Francis Ray

Francis Ray (July 20, 1944 – July 3, 2013) was a New York Times and USA Today bestselling African-American writer of romance novels. She was born in Richland, Texas, and studied nursing, receiving a bachelor's degree from Texas Woman's University in 1967. She began writing in 1987, while continuing to work as a nurse, and had her first book published in 1992. Ray was inspired to write after reading Kathleen Woodiwiss and J. California Cooper. She co-founded the Romance Slam Jam in 1995, an author-reader conference. Ray's stories are character-driven, and she focused on realistic portrayals of African Americans. Her novel "Incognito" was adapted into a made-for-TV movie by BET in 1999. She also established The Turning Point Legal Fund to assist women of domestic violence.