Bio

Gwen Richardson has been an author, writer, entrepreneur, and book industry innovator for decades.  As an author, she has 15 published books, seven non-fiction, two fiction, and six children's books. Her published books are as follows:

  • Exodus From Treachery (2023) - Sequel to The Genesis Files and Book 2 in the Genesis series
  • 101 Scholarship Applications: What It Takes to Obtain a Debt-Free College Education (Nominated for 2015 NAACP Image Award, originally published in 2014 with subsequent annual revised editions every January)
  • Boss Women: Seven African-American Women Who Built Their Businesses From the Ground Up (children's book - 2021)
  • Kidz Biz Children's Book Series (books 1 thru 5) (2019, 2020 and 2022)
  • Weekend Wealth Transfer: How Black Churches Move Billions of Dollars Out of Black Communities and How to Move It Back (2016)
  • 21 of Satan's Schemes, Tricks and Devices (2016)
  • You Are Wonderfully Made: 12 Life-Changing Principles for Teen Girls to Embrace (Co-authored with her daughter, Sylvia Richardson, nominated for 2016 NAACP Image Award) (2015)
  • Amen Corner: How the National Media Shaped Public Opinion on Gay Marriage (2013)
  • Write It Right: The Guide to Self-Publishing Your Best Book (2013)
  • The Genesis Files (mystery/thriller) (2012)
  • Why African Americans Can't Get Ahead: And How We Can Solve It With Group Economics (2008)


Gwen is co-founder and national coordinator of the National Black Book Festival.  This annual event, held in Houston, Texas, attracts over 100 African-American authors from across the U.S. and is one of the largest indoor gatherings of Black authors in the world. The event will celebrate its 17th anniversary in 2024. She is also creator, producer and co-host of the popular weekly live-streamed show/podcast, Black Authors Matter TV.

As an entrepreneur, Gwen is co-founder of Cushcity.com, which she and her husband, Willie, launched in December 1998 as the world’s largest African-American Internet retailer with over 20,000 products online. Since then, the company has evolved into a world-class provider of marketing and promotion services for authors and publishers.

Gwen has been a writer for most of her life.  She excelled in writing as both a child and a teen, winning writing contests in her formative years. Her first writing venture that was published was a letter to the editor of the Washington Post while she was a student at Georgetown University.  She began writing political commentaries in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and was published in several daily newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Constitution and Philadelphia Inquirer.

Prior to establishing Cushcity, she and Willie published a national public affairs magazine, Headway, and she served as the publication’s editor. She was a monthly columnist for USA Today from 1996 to 1999, and her commentaries have also been published in the above-referenced daily newspapers, as well as the Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News and the Amarillo Globe-Times. She has also been published in Editor & Publisher, Investor's Business Daily and Emerge magazine (which published in the 1990s).

Gwen is a native of Newport News, Va. She resides in Houston with Willie and their adult daughter, Sylvia.  She is a graduate of Georgetown University with a B.S. degree in marketing.