Joyce Carol Thomas is an internationally renowned author who received the National Book Award for her first novel, Marked By Fire , and a Coretta Scott King Honor for The Blacker the Berry and for her first picture book, Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea . Her picture book I Have Heard of a Land received a Coretta Scott King Honor and an IRA/CBC Teachers' Choice Award and was an ALA Notable Book. Her other titles include The Gospel Cinderella , Crowning Glory , Gingerbread Days , and A Gathering of Flowers . Ms. Thomas lives in Berkeley, California.