Ladee Hubbard

Ladee Hubbard (born 1970) is an American author and English professor at Tulane University. Her 2017 debut novel, The Talented Ribkins, won multiple awards. She released its prequel, The Rib King, in 2021.

Early life Hubbard was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. and spent summers in Florida with her grandparents. and studied at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. She has a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Work Hubbard began work on her first novel, The Talented Ribkins, while studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. and Hubbard herself won the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. The odd powers were influenced by W. E. B. Du Bois's idea of the talented tenth and common misinterpretations of the concept. It is a prequel to her debut novel. The first half follows the story of Mr. Sitwell, the Black groundskeeper for the White Barclay family. The Barclays sell bottled barbecue sauce with a cartoonish version of Sitwell—the "Rib King"—on the label. The book focuses on racism, inequality, the Black middle class, and unpunished violence.

Released in 2022, The Last Suspicious Holdout is a collection of short stories, all set in the 1990s to early 2000s in a mostly Black suburb. The stories were written over a period several years beginning when Barack Obama was elected as the United States' first Black president.