Nick Chiles

Chiles grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father is the pianist Walter Chiles, who was the leader of the jazz trio Chiles & Pettiford in the 1960s and of the funk band LTG Exchange in the 1970s.[3] Atlantic Records released the 1965 Chiles & Pettiford recording Live at Jilly's.[4] Walter Chiles wrote most of the LTG Exchange's songs, including their biggest hit, "Waterbed".[5]

Chiles attended St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City and received a B.A. in psychology from Yale University.[6]

Chiles worked as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News and New York Newsday, where he contributed to a 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a subway crash.[7] He later worked as an education reporter for the Star-Ledger.[8] Chiles has also worked as a ghostwriter.[9]

Chiles has written or co-written 15 books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers: The Blueprint: A Plan for Living Above Life’s Storms (2010, co-authored with Kirk Franklin),[10] The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership (2013, written with Rev. Al Sharpton),[11] and Every Little Step: My Story,[12] (2016, written with Bobby Brown.)

Chiles and former NBA player Etan Thomas wrote Fatherhood: Rising to the Ultimate Challenge (2012).[13] Chiles and then-Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick collaborated on the 2012 book, Faith in the Dream. His book Justice While Black,[14] written with attorney Robbin Shipp, was a finalist for a 2014 NAACP Image Award.[15] He co-wrote the 2019 book Engage Connect Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders [16] with Angelou Ezeilo (née Chiles), his younger sister.

Chiles and his then wife, American author Denene Millner,[17] co-wrote the bestselling three book non-fiction relationship series, What Brothers Think, What Sistahs Know, published by HarperCollins.[18][19][20] Their novel Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, published by Dutton, appeared on two bestseller lists, Essence and Blackboard. They also co-wrote the novels In Love And War and A Love Story.[21]

A short story by Chiles was included in the Ballantine anthology, Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America, which won a 1996 American Book Award. Chiles and Jeff Jones also co-wrote a young adult novel called The Adventures of De-Ante Johnson: The Obsidian Knight.

Chiles lives in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife Sadiqa Chiles.

• "Their Eyes Were Reading Smut". New York Times By Nick Chiles January 4, 2006