She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband.[1][2]
Career
Journalism
In 1994, Walton began her career in journalism as a recent high school graduate interning for The Florida Times-Union — she wrote for the Teen Rap section of the paper that existed at the time.[1] Her journalism career continued after college at The Oregonian in Portland and The Washington Post in D.C.[1] She then moved to New York City where she worked as a magazine editor for a number of publications, including Essence, Entertainment Weekly, Getty Images, and LIFE.[1][3][2]
Writing
Walton published her debut novel, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, in 2021 to critical acclaim. The book covers the fictionalized oral history of a 1970s interracial rock duo.[1][3]
She was inspired to write the book after seeing the documentary called 20 Feet from Stardom about backup singers.[1] It featured Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt who were singing with Talking Heads, and Walton found herself drawn to these "two amazing Black women."[1] Thus began the inspiration for her first novel.[1]
Walton wrote this novel over seven years, for much of that time working on it before or after her day job, waking up at 5 am or staying up late.[3][4] Walton was working as the deputy managing editor at Essence in 2015 when she decided to leave her job entirely to work on the novel full-time.[4]
After publishing her first novel, Walton co-founded a new startup with Longreads founder Mark Armstrong and author Deesha Philyaw.[8] The startup, called Ursa, aims to celebrate and promote short fiction by underrepresented authors through a website, a podcast, and publishing—including publishing audio stories.[8] Walton and Philyaw host the podcast together.[8]
Awards and honors
In 2021, Barack Obama and Booklist included The Final Revival of Opal & Nev on their list of the year's best books.[9][10]
