In 1978 Diane married her high school sweetheart Greg Whetstone. Shortly after Diane graduated from college, her mother died of esophageal cancer after a two-year battle. “It was reading that was the most instructive. “I didn ’t write any fiction at Penn, ” she told Penn Arts & Sciences. Diane attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in English. They also excelled at writing, with three of them -Diane included -eventually opting for careers in communications. The McKinney sisters would have reading contests to see which of them could finish a book before the others. “My father especially was a great storyteller, ” McKinney-Whetstone remembered in Penn Arts & Sciences. The second of five daughters born to Pennsylvania State Senator Paul McKinney and his wife Bessie, Diane grew up in a home that valued the word, both written and oral. After her debut novel, Tumbling, received good reviews and she was well into writing her next novel, McKinney-Whetstone eventually gave up her day job to focus on writing what she found most rewarding -novels featuring vividly drawn characters set in her hometown of Philadelphia. Although she had been a public affairs officer for the USDA Forest Service for a number of years, it took the approaching milestone of her fortieth birthday to steer her toward a more rewarding writing career. Diane McKinney-Whetstone is the author of a trio of well-received novels that portray African American families: Tumbling, Tempest Rising, and Blues Dancing.
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