Kalisha Buckhanon is a writer, speaker and commentator creating stories and media about African-Americans, women, love, and justice.

Kalisha is the author of the novels SOLEMN, CONCEPTION and UPSTATE. Her next novel, SPEAKING OF SUMMER, pulls readers into a woman's quest for answers and justice about her sister's disappearance from Harlem, leading to revelations about women’s lives in urban America and the power of family wounds. She is also seen on ID Channel, BET and TV One as an expert in true crime cases involving women. She was born in Kankakee, Illinois, and attended the College at University of Chicago, The New School M.F.A. Creative Writing Program and University of Chicago's English PhD program.

Her remarkable 2005 debut UPSTATE introduced Kalisha in such media as The Guardian/Observer and Essence, which named her one of "Three Writers to Watch." UPSTATE's audiobook is co-narrated by Chadwick Boseman and won an Audie Award in Literary Fiction, and Terry McMillan gave Kalisha a Young Author Award specifically for the novel. The book is one of 5 chosen for the new National Book Foundation “Literature for Justice” program, an American Library Association ALEX Award winner, a Hurston/Wright Foundation Debut Fiction finalist, and on New York Public Library’s List of Best Books for Teens. Her second novel CONCEPTION won a 2008 Friends of American Writers Award in Fiction. She is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship winner and Phi Beta Kappa member.

Kalisha’s stories and essays appear in She Knows, Fiction International, Oxford American, Black Renaissance Noire, Kweli, pluck!, xoJane, Winter Tangerine Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and many more. She lives and works in Chicago.