July 24, 2009 – E. Lynn Harris, the African-American, openly gay author, died while on a West Coast book tour. He was 54.

He was on tour for his most recent book, Basketball Jones, about the gay lover of an NBA star.

Harris grew up in Little Rock and attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he continued to teach courses through last fall.

He self-published his first book, Invisible Life, after failing to find a publisher. He sold it himself at black-owned bookstores and beauty salons until Anchor Books published it as a trade paperback in 1994.

Harris wrote 11 books, with four million copies of his work in print. His writing also appeared in Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.

His novel If This World Were Mine was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Abide with Me was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award. His anthology Freedom in this Village won the Lambda Literary Award in 2005. Over the past three years, he has also been named to Ebony’s “Most Intriguing Blacks” list, Out Magazine’s “Out 100″ list, New York Magazine’s “Gay Power 101″ list, and Savoy’s “100 Leaders and Heroes in Black America” list.