Frances Shani Parker

Detroit, MI

E-mail:

Website:

www.francesshaniparker.com

Author's Bio

Frances Shani Parker is an award-winning writer, eldercare consultant, speaker, and former school principal. A hospice volunteer for many years in Detroit, Michigan nursing homes, she is author of Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes, a ground-breaking account of her insights and experiences with hospice, nursing homes, caregiving, dementia, death, and bereavement. Included are the often-missing voices of urban dwellers, especially people of color. An advocate for eldercare and nursing home reform, Parker is involved with several older adult organizations. In Detroit, she serves on the board of the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University. She writes Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog, which includes eldercare news, practices, research, poems, stories, and interviews. As an educator, Parker has consulted in school districts nationally on schoolwide action research with service learning, a teaching and learning approach that connects classroom learning with meeting community needs. Visit her in cyberspace at www.francesshaniparker.com

Publications and Prizes

Prizes Won:

Writing Awards: Writer’s Digest, the Poetry Society of Michigan, the Detroit Writer’s Guild, Broadside Press, the New Orleans Public Library Publications: Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes (paperback and e-book editions) Anthologies, Newspapers, Newsletters, Black Arts Quarterly (Stanford University), Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas (Chicago State University), Voices of the Civil Rights Movement (AARP) Educator Awards: Service-Learning Trailblazer Award presented by the National Service-Learning Partnership, Outstanding Education Administrator Award presented by the Metropolitan Detroit Alliance of Black School Educators, Educator of the Year Award presented by the Wayne State University Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, an international, professional fraternity for educators