About Tu-Shonda
is an award-winning bestselling author, television creator, screenwriter, and multidisciplinary storyteller whose work moves across literature, film, television, music, and visual art.
An Essence bestselling author, Whitaker’s literary career includes The Ex Factor, which reached #1 on the Essence Best Sellers list, Role Play, and an expansive body of fiction written under her own name and through the pen names Risqué and Ni-Ni Simone.
Her work has earned recognition including the Ella Baker and W.E.B. Du Bois International Award for fiction writing, while her young adult fiction has received honors from YALSA and the Virginia Readers’ Choice program.
Whitaker carried that storytelling from the page to the screen, serving as lead writer for Haus of Vicious, starring Tami Roman. She also created and co-wrote the BET+ holiday film Whatever It Takes, based on her own novel, and co-wrote the action thriller Imani.
Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker
Whitaker has never believed a story has to stay in one lane.
Her creative world now extends into music and visual storytelling, where she writes and develops original work through distinct artist personas including Nia Truth and Oya Pickney. Whether the story arrives as a novel, a television series, a film or a song, the impulse remains the same: tell the truth, make it feel like something, and give complicated people room to be fully human.
Her work is drawn to the places where love gets messy, memory refuses to stay buried, spirituality brushes against the everyday, and people are forced to confront who they have been, what they have survived, and who they still have the courage to become.
Always a storyteller, Whitaker creates work meant to entertain, provoke, move, and linger long after the story ends.
Awards & Literary Recognition
Ella Baker and W.E.B. Du Bois International Award for Fiction Writing.
Award recipient for fiction writing.
#1 Essence Bestselling Author
The Ex Factor reached #1 on the Essence Best Sellers list. Whitaker is recognized professionally as an Essence bestselling author.
VIBE/Vixen Recognition — The Ex Factor
The Ex Factor received notable magazine attention, including recognition from Vixen and Romantic Times Book Review as one of the year's particularly hot, sensual, and humorous releases.