Author Omar Tyree

Writer's Life Chats

Omar Tyree, is a New York Times best-selling author, journalist, lecturer, poet, screenwriter, songwriter, playwrite, host, blogger, publishing consultant and literacy advocate, who has won a 2001 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature in Fiction, a 2006 Phillis Wheatley Literary Award for Body of Work in Urban Fiction, a 2008 Citation from the City Council of Philadelphia for the African-American Children's Book Fair, and a 2010 HBCU Legends Award for his tiresome work in urban literacy. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from the prestigious Central High School in 1987, Tyree first attended the University of Pittsburgh as a Pharmacy major and an aspiring football player. After spending his first two years at Pitt, he found his new passion and calling as a writer and storyteller, penning his first published series, “The Diary of a Freshman” along with two novels; Colored, On White Campus, (now titled College Boy in his Urban Griot series) and Flyy Girl, which became a contemporary urban classic that spawned an entire genre of so-called “urban/street lit” books.