About

Kathleen Cross is an author and speaker who has been a guest on numerous television and radio shows including Oprah, Montel, Dr. Phil, Phil Donohue and Michael Baisden.

The daughter of a black father and white mother, Cross writes and speaks about race and racism through the eyes of an ethnically mixed woman who is often perceived to be white.

Ms. Cross was named an expert by California Superior Courts on issues of race and cultural sensitivity, was featured in EBONY magazine in an article she penned about her experiences as a “white-looking biracial black woman,” and is included in Bruce Caine’s photo-essay book, Our Common Ground: Portraits of Blacks Changing the Face of America, (Crown, 1994) for which she wrote the forward.

Kathleen’s first novel, Skin Deep, (Avon, 1999 1st edition / WillliamBlue, 2011 2nd edition) won the Black Writers Alliance Gold Pen Award for its exploration of race, colorism and ethnic identity. Skin Deep has been required reading in colleges and universities around the country. Kathleen is also the author of Schooling Carmen (Avon, 2004) a thought-provoking novel about a beautiful, bigoted East L.A. high school counselor whose survival depends on her ability to embrace change.

Cross has taught at the elementary, secondary and university levels, and after over a decade of work as an education consultant working to improve teaching and learning for urban students of color, she now divides her time between writing, speaking and community service.