For more than 25 years, Hartford native Cindy Brown Austin has written
commentary on the tragedies of Connecticut’s low-income minority population. A
recipient fellow of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Cindy has received
numerous awards from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists, and is best
known regionally for her editorials, columns, and cover-stories written for The Hartford
Courant’s Sunday magazine, Northeast.
She was awarded an honorary degree from Capital Community College and has been profiled by the New York Times on three occasions. Cindy has been a guest on a
variety of television and radio shows across the region and is a sought-after lecturer who enjoys teaching writing workshops and sharing her moving stories at colleges, prisons,
churches and for various organizations across the country. In 2005, a short documentary,
“A Breach in the Wall,” was made about her experiences growing up in the Charter Oak
Terrace housing projects.
A runner-up in Ebony Magazine’s annual fiction-writing contest, Cindy’s first novel, By the Rivers of Babylon, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007. Her latest book, Cinders; Stories of an Inner-city Survivor, is a coming of age story set in urban Connecticut that examines what racism does to children. Cindy’s mission is to give voice to the anguish and injustices currently being experienced by oppressed communities of color. She is a survivor of what she calls a “generational genocide.”
A licensed minister of the Apostolic faith, Cindy has been the Evangelism Director of the Church of Jesus Knows Best, Inc., for more than 25 years. Cindy currently lives in Bloomfield with David, her husband of 38 years. She has four grown daughters, three grandchildren, and a passion for street ministry. Currently, Cindy is at work on a number of writing projects, among them the sequel to her first novel and a collection of short stories. Cindy has an Associates degree in Communications from Capital Community College, a Bachelors in English & Sociology from the University of Saint Joseph, and a Masters of Management & Organizational Leadership from Albertus Magnus College. Cindi's books are available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and Goodreads.com
