Kathy Y. Wilson

Kathy Y. Wilson (d. November 22, 2022) was an American journalist, columnist, playwright, and commentator. She was the creator of an opinion column, a 2004 non-fiction book and a one-woman play all titled Your Negro Tour Guide.

Early life and education Wilson was born to Clarence Wilson, a steel worker, and Gladine Parrish, a nurse. She has two older brothers and a younger half-sister. She attended the University of Cincinnati but didn't graduate. Wilson wrote the column for alternative weekly City Beat from 1999 through 2006 and 2012 to 2015; the title refers to a retort she made to white former coworkers' questions about Black culture when Wilson was the only Black person in the newsroom.

Wilson was a commentator for National Public Radio. She taught at the University of Cincinnati. She was awarded the 2016 ArtsWave Sachs Fund Prize.

As of 2018 she was a senior editor at Cincinnati Magazine and an adjunct professor in University of Cincinnati's Women’s Studies department. VSU Sociology professor Tracy Woodward Meyers said, "the show deconstructs and lampoons gender, race, class, and sexuality in America.” It was produced in 2011 by the University of Kentucky. It was produced for the 2012 Cincinnati Fringe Festival.

Reception Publishers Weekly said "her writing works best when it's crackling and clipped". Tony Norman said, "Wilson's use of language is a virtual bouillabaisse of postmodern negritude, political cunning and psychological insight." In July 2020, during the fallout from the murder of George Floyd, Cincinnati Magazine named the book one of five must-read books by local Black authors. The Cincinnati Enquirer called her "one of Cincinnati's most fearless 21st-century writers." She lived in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati with her partner, Kandice.

In July 2020 she had a kidney transplant.