“We don’t have to wait for someone to greenlight our projects.
We can create our own intersections.”
–Tyler Perry
Award-winning author and attorney Pamela Samuels Young has always abided by the philosophy that you create the change you want to see. While growing up in Compton, California, Pamela set giant-sized goals and used her talent, tenacity and positive outlook to accomplish them. She consequently achieved success in both the corporate arena and literary world simultaneously.
For fifteen years, Pamela served as Managing Counsel for Toyota in Southern California, specializing in labor and employment law. While still practicing law, Pamela began moonlighting as a mystery writer because of her desire to see women and people of color depicted in the legal thrillers she read. That required her to rise at 4 a.m. to write before work, after work and any other spare time she could find. Dubbed by one reviewer as “John Grisham with a sister’s twist,” Pamela is now a full-time, award-winning author of more than a dozen novels and short stories.
Her thriller Anybody’s Daughter, a gripping tale of a teen unwittingly drawn into the world of child sex trafficking via a Facebook scam, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction and was a Top Ten pick by In the Margins, the best books for at-risk teens. From the inception of her writing career, Pamela was determined to write mysteries that matter. Her novels often take on social issues, such as workplace harassment and discrimination, teen sexting, child suicide, and bullying.
“My goal is to both entertain and educate,” Pamela says. “If you haven’t learned something after reading one of my books, I haven’t done my job.”
Pamela is also a proud natural hair enthusiast and the author of Kinky Coily: A Natural Hair Resource Guide, a book dedicated to empowering women to discover the true beauty of their kinky coils.
Before her legal career at Toyota, Pamela spent several years as an associate with the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, LLP, in Los Angeles. A former broadcast journalist, she began her career at WXYZ-TV in Detroit and later worked as a news writer and associate producer at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles.
A graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Law, Pamela earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from USC, and a master’s degree in broadcasting from Northwestern University.
A frequent speaker on the topics of self-empowerment, child sex trafficking and fiction writing, Pamela is single and lives in the Los Angeles area. To read an excerpt of her books or to schedule her for a speaking engagement or book club meeting via Zoom, FaceTime, speakerphone or in person, connect with her via social media or visit her website at www.pamelasamuelsyoung.com.coc
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”
–Richard Bach
