Alice Randall
*Alice Randall was born on this date in 1959. She is an author and songwriter.
She was born Mari-Alice Randall in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Washington, D.C. Randall attended Harvard University, graduating in 1981 with an honors degree in English and American literature. In 1983, she moved to Nashville to become a country songwriter.
In 2001, her first novel, The Wind Done Gone, became a New York Times bestseller and the subject of a First Amendment legal battle. Alice received the Free Spirit Award in 2001 and the Literature Award of Excellence from the Memphis Black Writers Conference in 2002. She was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in 2002 and was the first Black woman in history to write a number-one country song.
She has recorded over twenty songs, including two top ten records and a top forty. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is married to attorney David Ewing. She is a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University and teaches courses, including a seminar on the country music lyric in American literature.
