Louise Meriwether is a novelist, essayist, journalist, and social activist with family ties to South Carolina, USA. Her first book, Daddy Was a Number Runner , a fictional account of the economic devastation of Harlem during the Great Depression, was the first novel to emerge from the Watts Writers' Workshop. Meriwether followed with the publication of three historical biographies for children on Civil War hero Robert Smalls, pioneer heart surgeon Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, and civil rights activist Rosa Parks. Her most recent novel is Shadow Dancing. A member of the Harlem Writers Guild, Meriwether has taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Houston.