MARY HILL-WAGNER
Mary Hill-Wagner is an award winning journalist, professor and author of the upcoming memoir, Girlz ‘N the Hood: A Memoir of Mama in South Central Los Angeles, to be released by Pact Press in 2021.
Hill-Wagner considers herself “straight outta Compton” with just a few detours. She and her ten siblings were raised in South Central Los Angeles by a single mother. After graduating as valedictorian of Compton Senior High School, Hill-Wagner went on to earn bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees, respectively from the University of Southern California, Ohio State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has worked as a college instructor at Iowa State University, the University of Southern California, Drake University, Humboldt State University and others across the country. Hill-Wagner has been a daily newspaper journalist at the Chicago Tribune, Des Moines Register, Las Vegas SUN, and other publications. She has worked as an editor for the Pasadena Weekly and Wave Community newspapers. Her interests include reading, racquetball, poetry, movies and Broadway musicals. Hill-Wagner is married to Dr. Marcus Wagner. They have three dogs. They make their home in the Inland Empire in California.
GIRLZ 'N THE HOOD: A MEMOIR OF MAMA IN SOUTH CENTRAL LOST ANGELES
Pact Press, 2021
Girlz in the Hood is the unsentimental, moving, and surprisingly humorous account of a girl and her ten siblings who grew up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Mary’s mother was a fierce matriarch, a single mom who raised eleven children with the help of welfare checks and a fire arm hidden in her bra. Drugs, guns, and pregnancies were everyday occurrences, but Mary and her siblings took it all in stride, spying on the grown-ups, playing in the streets, and helping to take care of the new babies when they were born. The dubious yet colorful cast of characters that came into their lives (the Jehovah Witnesses, the whores, the addicts, the “fathers”), and the never-ending series of hardships (the jail terms, the knife fights, the mental illness, and homicides), couldn’t shake the core of the family. This is the story of Mary, but, even more so, it’s the story of her mother, a uniquely strong and extraordinary woman who was able to survive moments of pain and disappointment by laughing at the comedy of human missteps, miscalculations, and downright stupidity. This is also a story about race and of poverty and how, over time, it can wear you down and destroy you, because, although Mary got out okay, her sisters and brothers were not so lucky.
“Mary Hill-Wagner’s Girlz ‘n the Hood: A Memoir of Mama in South Central Los Angeles is sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful, yet always centered in the reality of her early life with her mother, Sarah Gordon, and her brothers and sisters.” —Professor Leon Dash, author of Rosa Lee: A Generational Tale of Poverty and Survival in Urban America
“There are many stories which comprise the history of Black Americans. Girlz ‘n the Hood is a wonderful, warm memoir that helps us put together a critical piece of L.A. A wonderful read.” —Nikki Giovanni, poet