Sapphire (author) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sapphire
Sapphire in New York City, 2021
Born	Ramona Lofton Fort Ord, California, U.S.
Education	City College of San Francisco City College of New York (BA) Brooklyn College (MFA)
Occupation	Author and performance poet
Notable work	Push (1996)

Ramona Lofton, who writes under the name Sapphire, is an American author and performance poet. She is known for her powerful stories and poems.

Early Life and Education

Ramona Lofton was born in Fort Ord, California. She was one of four children in a military family. They moved to different places in the United States and other countries.

Lofton left high school early. She then moved to San Francisco. There, she earned her GED certificate. She also started studying at the City College of San Francisco. Later, she left college to live as a "hippie".

In the mid-1970s, Lofton went to the City College of New York. She also earned a master's degree in fine arts from Brooklyn College. Before becoming a writer, Lofton worked many different jobs. She was a performance artist and taught people how to read and write.

Writing Career

Lofton moved to New York City in 1977. She became very involved with poetry there. She wrote and performed her poems. She also published them during the rise of the Slam Poetry movement in New York.

She chose the name "Sapphire" for her writing. She felt this name would look better on a book cover than her birth name.

First Books of Poetry

Sapphire published her first collection of poems in 1987. It was called Meditations on the Rainbow. Her 1994 book of poems, American Dreams, is often mistakenly called her first book. One critic said it was "one of the strongest debut collections of the 1990s".

The Novel Push

Her first novel, Push, was not published at first. Then, a literary agent named Charlotte Sheedy found it. Her interest made the book very popular. This led to a competition among publishers to buy the rights.

In 1995, Sapphire offered the first 100 pages of Push to publishers. The highest bidder offered her $500,000 to finish the novel. The book was published in 1996 by Vintage Publishing. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since then. Sapphire once said that seeing Push for sale in a bookstore made her realize her writing had reached a much wider audience.

Precious Film Adaptation

A movie based on her novel Push came out in January 2009. It was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was renamed Precious. This was to avoid confusion with another movie called Push that came out in the same year.

The movie starred Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique. Mo'Nique won an Academy Award for her role as Precious's mother. Other actors in the film included Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. Sapphire herself has a small role in the movie as a daycare worker.

Continuing Stories and Recognition

In 2011, Sapphire released The Kid. This book is a sequel to Push. It tells the story of Precious's son, Abdul. Sapphire said she decided to continue the story because Push received a lot of interest from scholars.

Sapphire's writing was the topic of a special meeting at Arizona State University in 2007. In 2009, she received an award for literature from United States Artists.

Sapphire focuses on writing about parts of life that people do not often talk about. Her work is included in the 2019 book New Daughters of Africa. This book was put together by Margaret Busby.

Works

Novels

• Push (1996)
• The Kid (2011)

Poetry

• Meditations on the Rainbow: Poetry (1987)
• American Dreams (1994)
• Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems (1999)

See also

In Spanish: Sapphire (escritora) para niños