Lorene Cary's Philly roots

LORENE CARY has roots in Philadelphia as a novelist, arts advocate and educator.

Cary, 54, was born in Philadelphia and attended school in the district until fourth grade, when her family moved to Yeadon. She graduated from St. Paul's School, in New Hampshire, and later taught there.

Her novel "The Price of a Child" was selected as the first "One Book, One Philadelphia" work in 2003, and she later received the Philadelphia Award.

In 1998 she founded the Art Sanctuary, which brings contemporary African-American art to the city and uses it as an educational and social tool. It opened in North Philadelphia's Church of the Advocate, where she taught Sunday school.

She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

She teaches creative writing at Penn and trains students to teach literature at public schools and other community sites. She taught an art class to inmates at the Philadelphia Detention Center last spring.

She lives in East Falls with her two daughters and her husband, the Rev. Robert C. Smith, rector of the Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd, an Episcopal church in East Falls.

- Morgan Zalot