When Corinne was four years old, her family moved from Brooklyn, New York, where she was born, to Boston, Massachusetts, and then across the river to Cambridge. After a few years, they moved to Concord, New Hampshire, then to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then back to Cambridge, where she finished high school. She majored in dance in college and returned to New York to become a professional dancer.

Corinne developed lupus as a young adult and eventually had to stop dancing. She began to draw, and it became her new passion. She studied drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York for four years, spent a summer at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and earned her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Corinne moved to Tampa, Florida, to teach sculpture at the University of South Florida. She continues to be a practicing artist. Her work has been exhibited and collected nationally, and she has received numerous awards, grants, and fellowships.

All the while, when she was dancing and making art, Corinne kept a journal in which she wrote poetry and short stories. In 2003 she began writing poetry and short stories for children. By 2006 she was writing novels. Her love of the arts shows up in her stories, which tend to have characters who sing, dance, play music, write, and draw. She is the 2019 recipient of the Nikki Grimes Artist in Residence Scholarship from the Highlights Foundation. Corinne loves writing historical fiction and enjoys studying African American and African Diaspora history and culture. In both her writing and artwork, she feels compelled to honor and tell the stories of her ancestors. She lives in Tampa, Florida. She is a cat person, a jazz and opera lover, and enjoys spending time outdoors.

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Books by Corinne Gaile