If you met Patrice Gaines when she was 21 years old, you may not have guessed that she'd later become a bestselling author and successful journalist. That's because she slipped into a negative lifestyle as a young woman, eventually winding up in a Charlotte jail. But she managed to turn it all around, penning two books and publishing work in Essence and The New York Times.

Today, Patrice can often be found mentoring incarcerated women at the same jail where she was held in 1970 or helping students find their own voices through writing fiction and nonfiction. She coaches students by phone and occasionally in person at her home in Lake Wylie, South Carolina.