Valerie Boyd, Zora Neale Hurston biographer, dead at 58

NEW YORK (AP) — Valerie Boyd, the author of a well regarded biography of Zora Neale Hurston and editor of an upcoming collection of Alice Walker’s journals, has died at age 58. Boyd was a former arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whose “Wrapped in Rainbow: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston” was published in 2003 and praised by The New York Times for its “painstaking and thorough” research. It was also named a notable book by the American Library Association. Simon & Schuster will publish “Gathering Blossoms Under Fire, The Journals of Alice Walker 1965-2000” on April 12.