Kionna Walker LeMalle is a novelist, poet, speaker, and sought-after writing teacher. She has taught writers at every level from elementary through graduate school. Today, LeMalle teaches in the Department of Narrative Arts at Houston Christian University and remains on the faculty roster for Houston’s Writers in the Schools, supporting continuous investment in young authors. Passionate about nurturing other writers, LeMalle runs Writer.Teacher.Friend, a virtual writing group.

As the great-granddaughter of Houston’s Civil Rights legend, Beatrice Lehman Green, LeMalle knows first hand the difficulty and the necessity of telling the stories of the past. Through her fiction, she challenges readers to see hope in pain, resilience in trauma, and forgiveness after betrayal. A Southern girl at heart, she is drawn to stories both warped and shaped by the distinct American South, a region that fuels her imagination, as well as her belief in the restorative power of community, the Church, and the second line.

LeMalle earned her Bachelor of Arts in Education from Xavier University of Louisiana, a Master of Education from the University of New Orleans, and an MFA from Houston Christian University. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in The Southern Quarterly, The First Line, and The Bayou Review. 

LeMalle has been married to her pastor and best friend for more than twenty-seven years. Together they have four children and one granddaughter to whom she hopes to leave a legacy of story and knowledge of the power of the written word.