USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Biographical Sketch

Gabrielle Pina is an award winning fiction writer and novelist. A poignant and masterful storyteller, Pina’s novels have been described as “ever suspenseful” by Black Issues Book Review and “a spectacular effort” by Written Magazine.  

Winner of the 2002 Pacificus Foundation Literary Prize for achievement in short fiction, Pina was viewed as “the writer to look out for” when she published the highly acclaimed short story Uncommon Revelations for the ESI Anthology, recently re-released by Amazon Shorts. That year also featured the birth of her thesis project, Bliss into her first novel, which culminated in a three-book deal with Random House and a national book tour.  Pina’s long awaited sophomore novel, Chasing Sophea was released in October 2006 and has become a book club favorite.

Pina is a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s Master of Professional Writing Program, where she also received a Master of Arts degree, and she is an adjunct English professor at Pasadena City College where she developed innovative curriculum that addressed the matriculation rate of African American students on college campuses. 

In March of 2012, Pina premiered Letters from Zora in Her Own Words, a play that showcases the artistic and literary triumphs of the life of Zora Neale Hurston at the University of Southern California to a sold out crowd of over twelve hundred.  She is preparing to remount Letters from Zora and just completed the screenplay from her first novel Bliss.  She is also hard at work on her third novel, A Season for Hummingbirds as well as her second play Shades of Harlem. 

Education

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

Publications

Book