Distinguished poet, fiction writer, and dramatist Joyce Carol Thomas joined the English Department in 1989. A native of Oklahoma, she received the BA from California State University, San Jose, and the MA in education from Stanford. Her first novel, Marked by Fire, won a National Book Award. Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, a book of poems illustrated by Floyd Cooper, was published in 1994, winning two Coretta Scott King awards—one for Thomas’s text and one for Cooper’s illustrations. Thomas’s work has also been recognized by the American Book Award, American Library Association awards, the International Reading Association Award, an Oklahoma Lifetime Achievement Award, and many more. She is particularly acclaimed for her work directed at children and young adults. She resigned from UT to devote full time to her writing in 1996 and relocated to Berkeley, California.