Ashley & JaQuavis facts for kids

Ashley & JaQuavis
Born	Ashley Antoinette Snell JaQuavis Coleman Flint, Michigan
Genre	Street lit
Notable awards	New York Times Best Seller
Years active	2006-present

Ashley & JaQuavis is the pseudonym of American writing street lit duo and New York Times best selling authors Ashley Antoinette and JaQuavis Coleman. They are considered the youngest African-American co-authors to place on the New York Times Best Seller list twice. Their best-known work is the Cartel series, which appeared on the list in 2009 and 2010.

Biography

Ashley Antoinette Snell (b. 1985) and JaQuavis Coleman (c. 1984) were both born in Flint, Michigan. Coleman was raised in foster homes after being removed from his mother's home at age eight and eventually graduated from Flint Central High School; Antoinette graduated from Hamady High School. One day, Coleman told her: "I bet I could write a better book than you." Antoinette, who was very competitive, agreed; within days, they combined their works into Dirty Money, their first novel. The pair attended Ferris State University for two semesters.

Career

At 18, they landed their first publishing deal by selling the Dirty Money manuscript to Carl Weber's Kensington Publishing imprint, which focused on street lit. They dropped out of Ferris State and moved to New York to pursue writing. Antoinette and Coleman's books are based primarily by their lives in impoverished Flint, Michigan. They initially sold free advance copies they received from their publisher from the trunk of their car but quickly became prolific authors in the street lit genre, publishing four or five books annually. By 2009, their book Tale of the Murda Mamas, the second installment of their Cartel series, appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.

In 2012, Diamonds Are Forever, Cartel book four, was also featured on the New York Times Best Seller list, and Coleman and Antonette were recognized as #27 of Ebony's Power 100, a list that also featured the Obamas, Oprah, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and Trayvon Martin. They were nominated separately for Street Lit Writer of the Year by the African Americans on the Move Book Club (AAMBC); JaQuavis was also nominated for Male Author of the Year. In 2013, they started their own company, the Official Writers League, which publishes authors such as Keishar Tyree, C.N. Phillips, and Ameleka McCall. Antoinette signed a contract with Viacom to write several novelas about the main characters from the show Single Ladies on VH1. She was also nominated as the Female Author of the Year by the AAMBC. Antoinette received two more nominations by the AAMBC in 2014 (Reader's Choice Awards) and 2016 (Street Lit Writer of the Year).

The pair was awarded with the Urban Classic Honor at the 2018 AAMBC Awards; the following year, Antoinette's Ethic series was named the Best Black Book Series and she was named Author Queen of the Year by Black Girls Who Write (BGWW), while Coleman was named Author King of the Year. In 2020, Antoinette won her first AAMBC awards: Urban Book of the Year for the sixth installment of her Ethics series and Street Lit Writer of the Year. She and Coleman were awarded the Best Black Collaborative Series by BGWW. Antoinette and the couple's 10-year old son Quaye co-wrote The Girl Behind the Wall, published in 2020 by Ashley Antoinette Inc.

Film

In addition to writing, JaQuavis is also a film producer and director. In 2012, he directed Hard 6ix, based on their novel Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and starring Tone Trump, Ashley Antoinette, and Tiffany Marshall. In 2013, he directed 1000's "Life of a DopeBoy" music video and worked production on a film with Sean Lott. He was also working with HBO on the pilot of a television show. In 2015, he wrote and directed White House: The Movie based on his novel The White House. In 2021, Coleman worked as executive producer, writer, and director of the film Everything is Both, co-produced by Ekpe Udoh and starring Barton Fitzpatrick, Stakiah Washington, and Jason Mitchell. The film is based on a short story by Coleman.

Antoinette and Coleman signed Cartel film rights over to Cash Money Content in 2012. Coleman also signed deals with Warner Bros and NBC Universal for television development.

Personal life

Their son Quaye was born in 2010. In 2011, they were living in Manhattan, New York City; by 2015, the family lived in a four-bedroom home north of Detroit.